@leelynds said:
@zpaolo11x said:
Same here, until Plex started thinking that 720x400 could be a cropped 480p or cropped 576p without taking a look at the display aspect ratio of the video :
With the current method used by Plex, 720X400 will always be a 576p video. It does not fit into the 640X480 box. The width is obviously greater than 640. For that matter, a video that is cropped to 720X304 is considered a 576p video.
720x304 CAN be a 276p video with cropped bars and a 720x400 CAN be a 480p or a 720p video with cropped black bars. And the way to tell if it is or not is to consider the aspect ratio. To say that a 720x400 video doesn’t fit a 640x480 box is silly: what is this 640x480? This is VGA resolution! It’s so simple: multiply the vertical resolution by the aspect ratio and you can easily tell what the original footage was: 576p 480p or other
I think that using the “real” vertical size of the video makes the most sense, and I think it’s more or less a standard used by most. When you crop the video for whatever reason, I think we have to accept we have may effectively lost the original resolution. So we might not be either 576 or 480, we are probably something less.
But if you have a 576 frame and you crop the black bars, you are still in the “576 realm”: if you show that video on a TV and one with black bars, they will look exactly the same
If you “force” a video resolution after cropping during the encoding as @JuiceWSA does back to 720X480, we should expect Plex to report 480p.
I’m not a fan of forcing back to 480 pixels when you have cropped from a 480 frame. It’s a useless vertical scaling that does not give you any advantage once the video is displayed.
In the example provided by him, the video is 720X480 with a display aspect of approx 2.54:1. If you take the video resolutions, and do the math, that video has a display size of approx
Choice A - 1220X480 (if my math is right - 2.54 X 480), using the vertical resolution
I’ll give you my opinion here, it depends by the source. Let’s say the source is DVD
If your source is a DVD then it’s frame resolution was 720x480, and the aspect ratio of the source material can only be 16:9 or 4:3. There’s no DVD with an image of 720x480 and an AR of 2.54:1.
So you have a DVD frame of 720x480 which will be expanded to 16:9, that is 854x480, with black bars because the movie is 2.54:1 and not 16:9.
When encoding for Plex you can crop the bars, and use a frame of 720x336 with 2.54:1 anamorphic. That will be expanded to a 854x336 by your TV, and added black bars of course, and in the end you’ll have the exact same resolution on screen that if you were using the original 854x480 frame with black bars.
How can you tell that this 720x336 was 480p? Just multiply 336x2.54, result is 854, this is the number telling you that the source was 480p 16:9.
You can also decide to expand the video before encoding, and do it in 854x336 non anamorphic, aspect ratio of course will still be 2.54:1 and once shown on screen, you guess it, the resolution will be the same as before but you’ve scaled it horizontally before encoding.
Choice B - 720X284 (720/2.54) using the horizontal resolution
This doesn’t make sense: it’s like using 4:3 letterboxed, you’re throwing away a lot of vertical resolution in this way. But still I can tell you what format is this: multiply 284x2.54 and you obtain 720. 720 is the number that tells you we are dealing with a 4:3 480p kind of resolution.
If we apply your suggestion of using the display size, which is correct?
My suggestion is to use display size AND display aspect ratio
So, my point is, if you consistently use the common vertical resolutions used in broadcast, DVD and BluRay production,
Stop right here. You cannot use the same method for DVD and BluRay: BluRay is always square pixels and no anamorphism. In this case I expect a 16:9 movie to be 854x480, and you’ll have the same “resolution” (intended as lines per inch once shown on display) with a 854x336 2.54:1 movie.
Of course in this case you can also encode it to take full advantage of 480 vertical pixels because, with respect to DVD, you actually have enough information in the original frame to squeeze in 480 vertical pixels, then you can produce a 1220x480 2.54 movie that’s actually better than any encoding you can get for that movie from a DVD. So it is… 480p+??
and apply the standard 16X9 display resolutions to determint the horizontal width of the defining box, it shouldn’t matter if you crop, or use whatever anamorphic setting you decide on.
Exactly my point. But no need to use a “box”. It’s just 4 values and a product of two numbers.
The real, actual size of the video, in real actual pixels, will fit into a box. In those cases of extreme cropping, for example, a 720X304 video, I really don’t think we should expect the video to be reported as a 480p or 576p video, because it’s a long way from either. 
I disagree: a 480p version of a 2.54:1 will have 300something vertical “image” pixels and still be called 480p.
Let’s complete my example: the movie is 2.54:1 and the source can be (excluding 4:3 DVDs for now):
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16:9 DVD with 16:9 movie.
Storage frame 720x480, display resolution 854x480, display aspect ratio 16:9, image resolution 854x480. There are no black bars and vertical * AR = 854, this is a 480p video.
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16:9 BR with 16:9 movie.
As before, you’ll probably directly encode it to 854x480 16:9 AR, still a 480p video.
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16:9 DVD with 2.54:1 movie.
Storage frame 720x480, display resolution 854x480, display aspect ratio 16:9, image resolution (expanded to square pixels) 854x336. However you encode it, to maintain intact the 336 liens of actual image you can have 720x480 16:9 with black bars, 854x480 16:9 with black bars, 854x336 2.54:1 or 720x336 2.541 (both cropped black bars). In any case vertical * AR = 854. This IS 480p because the definition in terms of lines per inch is the same as a DVD, and that 854 numbers tell just this. It tells you “the definition of this thing is the same as a DVD”
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16:9 BR with 2.54:1 movie.
In this case the original footage is 1920x1080 with black bars. You have an image of ~1920x756 pixels, which can be squeezed in any of the above resolution to give the same definition of a DVD (and I’d call it 480p anyway because the definition is what matters), or you can squeeze it to a 1220x480, which will be better than any other 480p source you’ll find.