[MPlayer-users] Automatic scaling

[Jukka Tastula]

On Thursday 02 May 2002 10:48, Frederik Klama wrote:

> Is there any way to switch off the automatic rescaling in mencoder when
> reencoding DVDs to DivX with libavcodev ?
> Because all the widescreen movies rust get rescaled to fullscreen (egg
> faces). I have read the manpage for mencoder and no switch described there

Actually, mencoder keeps the aspect ratio as it is, but the video on the dvd 
you're encoding isn't in 4:3 but 16:9 aspect ratio. With mpegs this is no 
problem as it supports aspect ratios 4:3, 16:9 and (unfortunately rarely used 
and supported) 2.21:1 where as avis don't have this feature. So you'll either 
need to encode the non-16:9 video stream from the dvd, or use -aspect option 
to squeeze (or spread, if you have a 16:9 monitor/tv) the picture to its 
intended aspect ratio when playing the clip.

I'm pretty sure mencoder has an option to squeeze the video before encoding 
too, but encoding the 4:3 stream from the dvd will probably give you better 
quality. Should be faster, too.