@ChuckPA – you have no idea what you’re getting into. >:)
Attached please find 4 videos.
- 720X480 NTSC video with anamorphic flag set to display at 16X9
- 720X576 PAL video with anamorphic flag set to display at 16X9
- 720X404 - simple 16X9 video
- 720X304 - simple, cropped widescreen 2:35 aspect video
All of them will be classified by Plex as 576p videos.
They are all at the NTSC framerate of 23.976. That should not matter for identifying resolution. The widescreen example is not actually cropped, I know that, but it was encoded to display as 2.35 aspect, 1:1 pixel ratio, so it does looks stretched. That result should be the same for identification purposes as well. Finally, although I did not include examples, a PAL or NTSC video with the anamorphic flag set to 4X3, I believe, is also identified as a 576p video.
Some other resolutions that will also come up as 576p:
1024X576, 854X480, 1024X436, 960X540… and the list goes on
Basically, anything that has a pixel width greater than 640 and doesn’t reach whatever Plex has determined is 720p is now classified as 576p. My opinion, for what it is worth, is that Plex chose to use a definition box as mentioned earlier. It appears that box was 16X9, and that method should actually work. But for some ungodly reason, for 480p videos, the box was changed to 4X3, and that’s the problem. a 720Xanything-you-choose video cannot fit into a 640X480 box, so it’s bumped up to 576.
