For plex to correctly identify 576p vs 480p material, even if the frame is not stored at 576 or 480 lines but it’s cropped because of aspect ratio, there’s a very simple formula: just multiply the vertical storage number of lines with the display aspect ratio, if the result is 1024 or 768 it’s 576p, if it’s 854 or 640 it’s 480p (add a gate to gather 720/704 difference or slight AR adjustment but you’re good to go.
@zpaolo11x said:
Wait, are you telling me you take a 720x480 storage frame, with 720(probably 704)x364 image frame+black bars, crop the black bars and encode it to a storage frame of 720x480 anamorphic?!?
That is the ‘Proper’ way. DVD material is stored at a MAX of 720x480 or 720x576, making it stupidly easy for Plex to identify it as well as being ‘The Industry Standard’.
704x480 or 704x576 is probably a 'Broadcast Standard. In those cases their original 704x480 or 704x576 can be the ‘Storage’ size without issue. Proper anamorphic settings still make it blossom into a beautiful butterfly on playback.
Why not encode it to 720x364 instead, I mean, what’s the point to stretch the “useful” 364 lines to the full 480 line? It’s just artifacts.
What artifacts? DVD material is ‘Stored’ at 720x480 or 720x576 - that’s the way it’s been for decades and how it’s going to be for decades to come.
Here’s how it looks in Stoage at 720x480 - black bars cropped:
Plex sees this res for correct identification - until the dumpster fire of 2017.
Here’s the beautiful butterfly on the wing during playback - TV adds the necessary black bars for the playback res of 854x364:
Plex doesn’t look at this res. It’s already identified it from it’s ‘Storage’ size - until the dumpster fire of 2017.
All according to The Industry Standard - completely proper and correct.
@zpaolo11x said:
Why not encode it to 720x364 instead?
Because that won’t be it’s full size. It’s full size outside of storage is 854x364. That’s outside the range of legal storage for DVDs and until the dumpster fire of 2017 threw Plex into a tailspin wherein it would identify it as 576p - correctly I suppose because 854 is wider than a legal 720 for DVD storage.
Now everything is 576p, which not only is wrong - it’s annoying as hell.
@zpaolo11x said:
For plex to correctly identify 576p vs 480p material, even if the frame is not stored at 576 or 480 lines but it’s cropped because of aspect ratio, there’s a very simple formula: just multiply the vertical storage number of lines with the display aspect ratio, if the result is 1024 or 768 it’s 576p, if it’s 854 or 640 it’s 480p (add a gate to gather 720/704 difference or slight AR adjustment but you’re good to go.
I don’t know if I agree or disagree, but I was trying to keep things simple. Overthinking something can sometimes unnecessarily complicate things. It was stated that the resolutions had to fit into a “box,” and that kinda makes sense to me. The table I devised covers your examples 
The problem was and is, I think, that generally they used a 16X9 box for most resolutions, but when they hit 480p they used a 4X3 box. That ends up with the defining box for 480p videos being 640 X 480. A standard DVD for NTSC is 720X480. The width of 720 (or 704) doesn’t fit in the box, so it’s bumped up to 576p.
@leelynds said:
The problem was and is, I think, that generally they used a 16X9 box for most resolutions, but when they hit 480p they used a 4X3 box. That ends up with the defining box for 480p videos being 640 X 480. A standard DVD for NTSC is 720X480. The width of 720 (or 704) doesn’t fit in the box, so it’s bumped up to 576p.
Analog Television (NTSC) was 4:3. Every TV in NTSC territory was 4:3. Easy. DVDs didn’t really need anamorphic settings because the widest a ‘Widescreen’ presentation needed to be was 640 to fit the analog display.
Remember those old DVDs that displayed ‘Knotholed’ with bars all around? Eh? Remember them? Wanna know why Zoom was invented on those new 16:9 displays? There you go.
Then, one fine day, 16:9 flatscreens came on the scene and ‘The Industry’ had to invent a work-around to get 854x364, for instance, on a DVD that couldn’t hold anything wider than 720. Anamorphic settings were born and became ‘The Industry Standard’.
DVDs worked with a storage size of 720x480, could be ‘tricked’ into blossoming into 854x364, for instance, Plex looked at the Storage size to determine it’s correct resolution and it was all flowers and kittens - until the dumpster fire of 2017.
@JuiceWSA said:
@zpaolo11x said:
Wait, are you telling me you take a 720x480 storage frame, with 720(probably 704)x364 image frame+black bars, crop the black bars and encode it to a storage frame of 720x480 anamorphic?!?That is the ‘Proper’ way. DVD material is stored at a MAX of 720x480 or 720x576, making it stupidly easy for Plex to identify it as well as being ‘The Industry Standard’.
Not “MAX” but “exactly”. DVD material is encoded for hardware (analog CRT TV) which has a fixed number of vertical lines, which is ~576, and for only two aspects: 4:3 and 16:9.
Why not encode it to 720x364 instead, I mean, what’s the point to stretch the “useful” 364 lines to the full 480 line? It’s just artifacts.
What artifacts? DVD material is ‘Stored’ at 720x480 or 720x576 - that’s the way it’s been for decades and how it’s going to be for decades to come.
If the movie is 2.35:1 then the DVD will be encoded in 720x576 anamorphic to 16:9 with black bars. There won’t be 576 lines of “image” but 364 lines of image and black lines. What you are suggesting is to crop the black lines and then enlarge the image vertically from 364 lines to 576 lines, and enlarging on this small difference will add scalign artifacts to lines, won’t make a better picture.
Here’s how it looks in Stoage at 720x480 - black bars cropped:
Is this the DVD frame? Or is it the frame you have encoded from the DVD? I’m just trying to understand.
Here’s the beautiful butterfly on the wing during playback - TV adds the necessary black bars for the playback res of 854x364:
Why is it scaled to 854x364 if the recorded frame has 480 vertical lines? Why is it not expanded to 1200something x 480?
All according to The Industry Standard - completely proper and correct.
What I see in your pictures is a recorded frame of 720x480 with no black bars that is then anamorphically expanded to a 2:351 aspect ratio. This is not industry standard: industry standard for DVD only uses anamorphic to 4:3 or 16:9.
If you want to adhere to DVD standard you have to encode your movie with a 720x480 frame and black bars, the movie in 2.35:1 and the display aspect ratio of 16:9. All aspect ratios wider than 16:9 are letterboxed in DVD standard.
@zpaolo11x said:
Why not encode it to 720x364 instead?Because that won’t be it’s full size. It’s full size outside of storage is 854x364. That’s outside the range of legal storage for DVDs and until the dumpster fire of 2017 threw Plex into a tailspin wherein it would identify it as 576p - correctly I suppose because 854 is wider than a legal 720 for DVD storage.
Sure, because Plex can’t do the math needed to verify that a 720x364 frame with display aspect ratio of 2.35:1 is just a cropped 720x576 frame with a 2.35:1 movie image and anamorphic 16:9 expansion (remember, there are no other anamorphic espansions on DVD except 16:9 and 4:3 AFAIK). But once shown on screen that frame, with that sotrage and that anamorphic expansion has exactly the same number of lines density as a full frame with black bars. And the math is really simple, just multiply 364*aspect ratio and see if it’s 1024. If it is, then it’s a cropped 576p frame.
@JuiceWSA said:
@leelynds said:
The problem was and is, I think, that generally they used a 16X9 box for most resolutions, but when they hit 480p they used a 4X3 box. That ends up with the defining box for 480p videos being 640 X 480. A standard DVD for NTSC is 720X480. The width of 720 (or 704) doesn’t fit in the box, so it’s bumped up to 576p.Analog Television (NTSC) was 4:3. Every TV in NTSC territory was 4:3. Easy. DVDs didn’t really need anamorphic settings because the widest a ‘Widescreen’ presentation needed to be was 640 to fit the analog display.
To be 100% correct all DVDs are anamorphic, because the pixel aspect ratio is never square, for 4:3 and 16:9.
@leelynds said:
@zpaolo11x said:
For plex to correctly identify 576p vs 480p material, even if the frame is not stored at 576 or 480 lines but it’s cropped because of aspect ratio, there’s a very simple formula: just multiply the vertical storage number of lines with the display aspect ratio, if the result is 1024 or 768 it’s 576p, if it’s 854 or 640 it’s 480p (add a gate to gather 720/704 difference or slight AR adjustment but you’re good to go.I don’t know if I agree or disagree, but I was trying to keep things simple.
What’s so complicated in doing a multiplication and check a gate?
The problem was and is, I think, that generally they used a 16X9 box for most resolutions, but when they hit 480p they used a 4X3 box. That ends up with the defining box for 480p videos being 640 X 480. A standard DVD for NTSC is 720X480. The width of 720 (or 704) doesn’t fit in the box, so it’s bumped up to 576p.
Because they are ignorant of the fact that DVD has non square pixels. 640x480 is VGA, there’s no video standard resolution like that.
I just saw this thread and don’t know how I missed it. I must say that I too really dislike the 576p nomenclature for 480 material. It’s just wrong and looks like “amateur hour”. I’m in pretty much 100% agreement with JuiceWSA’s posts in this thread.
leelynds on page 3 put together a nice table/chart with breakdowns of resolutions that looks good and could be programmed without a lot of trouble.
So now that you know where I’m coming from let me ask a question that could make much of this a moot point and could work for both PAL and NTSC regions with very little programming change.
How would you guys feel if “576p” or “480” (whatever) was simply called DVD? So the label we would see would simply be DVD instead of the number. This should work for PAL and NTSC content. Granted it wouldn’t have the nice breakdown leelynds put together but I think it would be better to have DVD then 576 when the content is really 480.
What do you guys think? Could you live with this?
Carlo
PS my other pet peeve is labeling interlaced content as progressive when it’s not. 
@zpaolo11x said:
What’s so complicated in doing a multiplication and check a gate?
Nothing. But, either resolution fits into the proper 16:9 box without the extra step, doesn’t it? If it has 576 pixel height, regardless of the aspect ratio, it doesn’t fit in the 854X480 box I’m suggesting for 480p. Same applies for width dimensions, I believe.
Because they are ignorant of the fact that DVD has non square pixels. 640x480 is VGA, there’s no video standard resolution like that.
People rip and crop stuff at many resolutions that are not standard. That’s why the defining box should probably be 16X9 for the various resolutions. The cropped, un-cropped, and anamorphic flagged videos should all fit into one box or the other, as long as the final real or actual width AND height are not greater than the defining box.
@cayars said:
leelynds on page 3 put together a nice table/chart with breakdowns of resolutions that looks good and could be programmed without a lot of trouble.
That’s one option, the other is to calculate vertical resolution x display aspect ratio. But both method give the same results.
How would you guys feel if “576p” or “480” (whatever) was simply called DVD? So the label we would see would simply be DVD instead of the number. This should work for PAL and NTSC content.
I would accept it as a good compromise, even if I don’t think our proposed solutions are too complex to implement
@zpaolo11x said:
To be 100% correct all DVDs are anamorphic, because the pixel aspect ratio is never square, for 4:3 and 16:9.
DVDs are anamorphic only if the displayed size is outside the range of the storage size - or encoded by Wombats.
An encode at 640x480 requires no anamorphic settings - unless you’re like me and go for 100% compliance to the DVD storage standard.
You still don’t understand the difference in Storage and Display, maybe that’s because you’re not using Handbrake and didn’t have to learn exactly how it works, but for you that isn’t really an issue. Plex calls everything bigger than 720x480 576 (pre-fire and now post fire everything bigger than 640x480 is 576) so you can do whatever you want and it won’t make any difference as far as Plex is concerned.
Plex’s new and improved ‘industry standard’ is to make everything 576 - favoring PAL and flicking nose nuggets at NTSC.
I wonder if we are all over complicating this. The purpose of the label that plex gives to these things is for filtering. As such, it’s use is probably more qualitative than quantitative. That is, it’s purpose is to group things into categories of the approximate same resolution than to be precise.
So, instead of labels like 480p, 720p, and so on, perhaps just have labels like SD (< .8 megapixel), Low HD (< 1megapixel), HD (<1.3 megapixel) and SuperHD and so on. This avoids the thing that seems to drive many of us nuts, the quantitative mislabeling of resolution. On the -replay screen it could be shown as something like SD (720x480p) or HD (1920x1080i), etc.
It would keep the number of categories small and clearly defined and they would actually be useful for filtering then.
@ac4lt said:
I wonder if we are all over complicating this. The purpose of the label that plex gives to these things is for filtering.
Not really. For me it’s my overwhelming OCD triggered by Plex doing something really dumb and calling my 480p encodes 576 after I have, in excruciatingly painful detail, followed all the rules laid down in ‘The Industry Standard’.
As such, it’s use is probably more qualitative than quantitative. That is, it’s purpose is to group things into categories of the approximate same resolution than to be precise.
So, instead of labels like 480p, 720p, and so on, perhaps just have labels like SD (< .8 megapixel), Low HD (< 1megapixel), HD (<1.3 megapixel) and SuperHD and so on. This avoids the thing that seems to drive many of us nuts, the quantitative mislabeling of resolution. On the -replay screen it could be shown as something like SD (720x480p) or HD (1920x1080i), etc.
Are you trying to make me and my OCD explode into a fireball? That’s what’s going to happen if Plex picks up on that crazy idea, but if they do get your phone cams ready 'cause you’re gonna see a Human Spontaneously Combust. Please hold 'em Horizontally. I want to look my best on You Tube.
It would keep the number of categories small and clearly defined and they would actually be useful for filtering then.
Filtering, Schmiltering.
LOL
Really, I hope they fix it, not only for my OCD, but for your filtering issue as well.
@JuiceWSA said:
DVDs are anamorphic only if the displayed size is outside the range of the storage size - or encoded by Wombats.
An encode at 640x480 requires no anamorphic settings - unless you’re like me and go for 100% compliance to the DVD storage standard.
Why encode a 4:3 DVD to 640x480 when it can be encoded in 720x480 with anamorphic aspect ratio? And when I say that ALL DVDs are anamorphic, I mean all DVD, not the files you encode from them. There’s no DVD format with square pixels so they are all anamorphic to some extent.
You still don’t understand the difference in Storage and Display,
Oh I understand it believe me. You don’t read my posts, or you think you read something that I’ve not written. No problem.
Just to keep discussing, you know what this is?
This is a PAL frame as stored on a DVD, it’s 720x576, anamorphic to 16:9. Once expanded it will show a nice 1.85:1 movie image with black bars. Black bars are in the frame. If you want to PROPERLY encode it, you encode it with black bars at a frame of 720x576, OR you crop them and encode it at 720xSomething at 1.85:1 anamorphic. It’s that easy
You aren’t familiar with packing a full blown SD display aspect ratio onto DVD storage limitations, just like the original DVD you ripped the content from. A proper encode simply replicates the DVD. Simple as that.
I don’t care if my pixels are square or not. When they display on my TV - and every other player on Planet Earth - they display correctly even when stored at 720x480 <— that isn’t a valid display res for anything, or any aspect ratio, it’s simply the storage res. Given a proper anamorphic setting, Storage is expanded to Display and all is right in the world.
What it looks like when it’s opened up fully from storage has nothing to do with the way it’s stored.
@JuiceWSA said:
You aren’t familiar with packing a full blown SD display aspect ratio onto DVD storage limitations, just like the original DVD you ripped the content from.
You mean that DVD I showed you is not well done? That’s the only way I know to put a 1.85:1 film on a 16:9 DVD frame. No other fancy aspect ratios can be anamorphic on DVD
LOL – and I never use anamorphic settings, mostly because a few years ago there were several apps for Plex that wouldn’t display videos with an anamorphic flag properly (Playstation for one, I think xBox and a selection of web browsers - might be fixed now) Old habits just don’t go away, I guess.
So I choose to encode square pixels, 1:1, like a bluray rip, crop out the black bars and use either the remaining vertical resolution, or the intended display width to determine the size. In this example above, it would be either 1024X544 or 788X426 (720X390 if it was an NTSC DVD) to give me a video with a 1.85 aspect ratio. Whether one method is “more right” than the other is a debate no one is ever gonna win.
The final result either way is a picture that looks right, and until recently gave me an acceptable resolution size in Plex.
@leelynds said:
So I choose to encode square pixels, 1:1, like a bluray rip, crop out the black bars and use either the remaining vertical resolution, or the intended display width to determine the size. In this example above, it would be either 1024X544 or
This is a good solution if you don’t want to mess with anamorphic settings, just keep the vertical cropped resolution intact and scale the horizontal to fit the aspect ratio
@leelynds said:
LOL – and I never use anamorphic settings, mostly because a few years ago there were several apps for Plex that wouldn’t display videos with an anamorphic flag properly (Playstation for one, I think xBox and a selection of web browsers - might be fixed now) Old habits just don’t go away, I guess.So I choose to encode square pixels, 1:1, like a bluray rip, crop out the black bars and use either the remaining vertical resolution, or the intended display width to determine the size. In this example above, it would be either 1024X544 or 788X426 (720X390 if it was an NTSC DVD) to give me a video with a 1.85 aspect ratio. Whether one method is “more right” than the other is a debate no one is ever gonna win.
The final result either way is a picture that looks right, and until recently gave me an acceptable resolution size in Plex.
That’ll work fine, except for the fact that Plex never did like to play nice with RAW 1:1 DVD encodes and if they were over 720 wide they got called 576. I guess that point is moot now… dumpster fire and all.
@zpaolo11x said:
You mean that DVD I showed you is not well done?
Dunno, I can’t run it on my TV while it’s living at your house, but if you like it that’s good enough.
If you crop the black bars you don’t have to sweat it’s aspect ratio, nor do you have to encode black bars. You set the Width in Handbrake (854 - NTSC) (1024 - PAL) the player makes it as wide as the width setting and the height sets itself at it’s correct aspect ratio. It can’t be any taller than it is and it’s only as tall as the frame without the black bars. If there’s any ‘extra space’ not filled with a picture pixel, the TV knows to put black there, not dancing cats, so what difference does it make?
I don’t care what shape the pixels are while it’s in the ‘warehouse’ 'cause I’m not watching the storage. I’m watching it after it hits a player.
Something to keep in mind. We live in a different world now then 10 years ago. We don’t always use TVs to watch content anymore. We use smartphones, tablets & computers as well using both dedicated apps and dumb web browsers.
This changes the way the videos look depending on if you crop it or not, if you keep the black bars or not, etc Didn’t really want to complicate the discussion more than it already is but you can’t assume it’s going to look proper based on how it looks on your TV. More to it these days with the additional types of devices and software we use these days.
