Why is Plex identifying SD video as 576p?

@cayars said:
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.

Hmmm… the video should still look proper no matter what size screen it’s on, shouldn’t it? Even if it’s not a 16:9 display, the player on the device should display the video’s proper aspect, maybe resize and/oe relocate the amount of “black bars” around the video, depending on which part of the screen the actual video info cant fill, similar to how a 1920X800 video fits properly on a HDTV. All of my stuff looks right on an old CRT tube TV and my phone, just doesn’t fill the screen the same way.

If done correct yes it should.

But what I was getting at is that you may not be watching it full screen on a computer for example and might have it in a window using only part of your screen. How it gets displayed can be different depending on if you crop or don’t when remastering the material. These days you can’t just “assume” it will only be viewed on a TV so some people “cheat” a bit and like the results for their environment while a “purest” would go crazy with the resolution as has been mentioned in this thread.

Yes, that’s a good point I guess. Without bars encoded in, the video is more flexible, IMO. I’ve been doing it this way for many years and haven’t had a display issue across all my devices and many others. Everything I’ve ever read about the process while learning and in practice always suggests removing bars, setting the width and letting the height float. That could be wrong I just can’t confirm it on the devices I watch on and with these particular eyeballs. I’m a real stickler for viewing at the original aspect ratio and while everything is subject to being a few ticks off here and there everything looks right to me.

Regarding Bus Stop (1956) and Marilyn Monroe, I’ve got about everything she was ever in and her ‘attributes’ don’t seem to wax and wane like the Moon phases, so I must be doing something right. :slight_smile:

Whatever is right doesn’t really matter if it looks right and since I’m never watching ‘Storage’ I don’t care what it looks like while it’s in Storage. What does matter about storage is how Plex identifies it because that happens while it’s in Storage and ever since Heck was a Pup 720x480 was identified as 480p and now it’s 576 - that’s just wrong no matter who you are and what you’re watching it on.

@JuiceWSA said:
Yes, that’s a good point I guess. Without bars encoded in, the video is more flexible, IMO.

Sure, that’s a good point against black bars. I always crop them, that would work better in one of those super-widescreen monitors for example (not that I have any of them…).

I’ve been doing it this way for many years and haven’t had a display issue across all my devices and many others.

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 :smiley:

Whatever is right doesn’t really matter if it looks right and since I’m never watching ‘Storage’ I don’t care what it looks like while it’s in Storage. What does matter about storage is how Plex identifies it because that happens while it’s in Storage and ever since Heck was a Pup 720x480 was identified as 480p and now it’s 576 - that’s just wrong no matter who you are and what you’re watching it on.

Yes, let’s get back to the main point. What confuses Plex is that (in their words) 720x480 could also be a cropped 720x576 frame without black bars. Plex should do what you already do: don’t look at the storage alone. Storage alone, as you correctly said, is not meaningful if you don’t pair it with display size.

@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 ::disappointed:

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.

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.

If you “force” a video resolution after cropping during the encoding as @JuiceWSA does back to 720X480, we should expect Plex to report 480p. 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
Choice B - 720X284 (720/2.54) using the horizontal resolution

Storage alone, as you correctly said, is not meaningful if you don’t pair it with display size.

If we apply your suggestion of using the display size, which is correct? Plex would report the video as either a 720p video, because it fits into the 1280X720 box ( Choice A ), or as a 576p video, because it fits in the 1024X576 box ( Choice B ). In any event, it is not a 480p or SD video, which we should reasonably expect, because it does not fit in the 640X480 box.

Now lets use the same video, but do no cropping. In NTSC, the video is 720X480, with a display aspect of 16X9 (1.7778:1) That gives us a display size of 854X480. The same video in PAL would be 720X576, 16X9 display aspect, and comes out to 1024X576.The respective videos, regardless of video standard, fit properly into a standard 16X9 box, using the common vertical resolutions - 1080, 720, 576, 720, 480, etc.

So, my point is, if you consistently use the common vertical resolutions used in broadcast, DVD and BluRay production, 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. 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. :wink:

@leelynds said:
If you “force” a video resolution after cropping during the encoding as @JuiceWSA does back to 720X480, we should expect Plex to report 480p. 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
Choice B - 720X284 (720/2.54) using the horizontal resolution

Not really. For NTSC the widest a DVD item (480p) can be (ultimately and finally displayed) is 854 (1024 for PAL), so the final displayed height will be something far less than 480p (or 576p for PAL). 3.something is more in the ballpark. The width is determined in the Custom Anamorphic settings during the encode and I let the height float to fit the aspect ratio - whatever that ends up being. The ‘stored’ res (for my examples - and during a ‘correct’ encode) is always 720x480 or 704x480 (depending where you got it) and Plex always looked at the ‘stored’ res to determine it’s resolution - until recently. Now everything not 640x480 is 576p and that - as we all know (except Plex) is simply wrong.

720x284 is probably a correct ‘aspect ratio’ for some flavor of widescreen, but incorrectly encoded (as far as I’m concerned) and fell into the SD category before, but now probably falls into the 576p category and that - as we all know (except Plex) is simply wrong.

@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 ::disappointed:

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. :wink:

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):

  • 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.

  • 16:9 BR with 16:9 movie.
    As before, you’ll probably directly encode it to 854x480 16:9 AR, still a 480p video.

  • 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”

  • 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.

To make a long story short, Plex mistake is to think that 720 is a meaningful number in discriminating. It’s not. The meaningful number is the vertical resolution, coupled with the AR. If this gives you an equivalent horizontal resolution of 1024 then it’s 576p, if it gives 854 then it’s 480p. As you can see there’s no place for number “720” in this reasoning

This is a bug.

Homemade NTSC DVDs ripped via mkv show up in VLC as 720x480.

The same video shows up in Plex as 576p.

It’s important.

(If it’s not important why are we talking about it?) It’s plain and simple a bug.

@turnkit said:
It’s important.

(If it’s not important why are we talking about it?) It’s plain and simple a bug.

Agreed, 100%.

This is slightly related but I know @JuiceWSA will understand my pain: yesterday I noticed one of my PAL DVD (a 720x576 4:3 black and white movie) was encoded in 720x540. Sure aspect ratio is right, but the wombat squad is responsible for the reduction in vertical resolution!

@zpaolo11x said:
… yesterday I noticed one of my PAL DVD (a 720x576 4:3 black and white movie) was encoded in 720x540. Sure aspect ratio is right, but the wombat squad is responsible for the reduction in vertical resolution!

It’s a long post, but bear with me…

Most software (including the most popular, Handbrake) uses the horizontal size, and adjusts the vertical resolution to give you a video with 1:1 pixel aspect ratio by default. So, a 4X3 video with a width of 720 ends up with a height of 540. An NTSC DVD dumped into Handbrake will give you the same result, despite the fact that there are only 480 lines of vertical resolution. You get a reduction, I get an upgrade.

I don’t think there is anything wrong with this result. It was your decision to not use an anamorphic setting in the encoding to give you the original 576 resolution. Personally, I never rip/encode with the anamorphic flag, but because I live in NTSC land, I set the final size to 640 X 480 to match the vertical resolution. In your case, the video should be set to 768 X 576 when it’s a 4X3 video. (I don’t think handbrake lets you increase the horizontal resolution beyond the original, but other software will)

You probably don’t consider either of those sizes as legitimate, but both are pretty common sizes.

If you ripped a 16X9 PAL DVD, and once again decided not to use the anamorphic settings, you would end up with a 720X404 video. Well below the 576 vertical resolution your DVD was originally encoded at. Again, 720X404 is a pretty common video size… which is why I suggested the 720 width you disagree with :wink:

To be honest, I’ve read and re-read your last few posts a dozen times, and I think you and I are saying the exact same thing. In order to determine the resolution, Plex needs to only consider the vertical resolution of the video. Display width should not be considered as a deciding factor. Your anamorphic PAL DVD’s will show up as 576p, my anamorphic NTSC DVD’s show up as 480p.

If either of us choose to rip without the anamorphic flag, then we are going to end up with a completely different vertical resolution than the original source. Not true 576p or true 480p. That is why I suggested the 16X9 windows (boxes) to test the videos against. Your rip with the final result of 720X540 fits in the 576p box because both the width and height are less than 1024X576. Even though the horizontal resolution fits in the 480p box of 854X480, the vertical resolution says “no-go” so it’s still a 576p video according to Plex.

If you haven’t used the anamorphic setting, and end up with a video with only 400 or so (or less) lines of resolution, I don’t think we should grumble if Plex reports it as something less than standard PAL or NTSC videos. After all, it was our decision in the first place.

@leelynds said:
Most software (including the most popular, Handbrake) uses the horizontal size, and adjusts the vertical resolution to give you a video with 1:1 pixel aspect ratio by default.

Which is wrong because, as you know, DVD was born when TV was mostly CRTs, and CRTs don’t have a fixed “horizontal” resolution: they have a fixed “number of lines” that is scanlines. Horizontal “pixels” could be squashed or expanded without loosing detail in CRTs, while vertical size of “pixels” was fixed, that’s why anyone referring to a camera resolution talks about “lines”, not “columns”.

So, a 4X3 video with a width of 720 ends up with a height of 540. An NTSC DVD dumped into Handbrake will give you the same result, despite the fact that there are only 480 lines of vertical resolution. You get a reduction, I get an upgrade.

You don’t get “an upgrade” enlarging 480 lines to 540 is only giving you scaling artifacts. You’re basically “mangling” your source data instead of letting the TV do the scaling (and a 1080p or UHD TV can upscale a DVD sized frame quite good because of the higher pixel density)

I don’t think there is anything wrong with this result. It was your decision to not use an anamorphic setting in the encoding to give you the original 576 resolution. Personally, I never rip/encode with the anamorphic flag, but because I live in NTSC land, I set the final size to 640 X 480 to match the vertical resolution. In your case, the video should be set to 768 X 576 when it’s a 4X3 video. (I don’t think handbrake lets you increase the horizontal resolution beyond the original, but other software will)

Yes handbrake of course let you do whatever you want with the frame: you can scale it to 768x576 with square pixel before encoding, and that’s a better way to do it than squashing vertical resolution. On the other hand, sadly 720x480 4:3 NTSC with square pixels equals 640x480 so you are actually loosing some horizontal definition with this setting.

If you ripped a 16X9 PAL DVD, and once again decided not to use the anamorphic settings, you would end up with a 720X404 video. Well below the 576 vertical resolution your DVD was originally encoded at. Again, 720X404 is a pretty common video size… which is why I suggested the 720 width you disagree with :wink:

Or you can encode it at 1024x576 and retain most vertical resolution at the expense of some scaling horizontal artifacts. But, again, the best option these days is to keep the frame as it is, using anamorphic. If your TV has a large enough resolution scaling artifacts (from 720 to 1920) will be much better than from 720 to 1024

To be honest, I’ve read and re-read your last few posts a dozen times, and I think you and I are saying the exact same thing. In order to determine the resolution, Plex needs to only consider the vertical resolution of the video. Display width should not be considered as a deciding factor. Your anamorphic PAL DVD’s will show up as 576p, my anamorphic NTSC DVD’s show up as 480p.

That would be a dream :slight_smile:

If either of us choose to rip without the anamorphic flag, then we are going to end up with a completely different vertical resolution than the original source. Not true 576p or true 480p. That is why I suggested the 16X9 windows (boxes) to test the videos against. Your rip with the final result of 720X540 fits in the 576p box because both the width and height are less than 1024X576.

But to me 720x540 is not 576p. If fits the window but it’s not retaining the vertical definition of 576p video, since it’s been squashed, not cropped.

Even though the horizontal resolution fits in the 480p box of 854X480, the vertical resolution says “no-go” so it’s still a 576p video according to Plex.

I agree, but I think the problem is mostly with 480p material being identified as 576p, not viceversa…

@turnkit said:
This is a bug.
Homemade NTSC DVDs ripped via mkv show up in VLC as 720x480.
The same video shows up in Plex as 576p.
It’s important.
(If it’s not important why are we talking about it?) It’s plain and simple a bug.

I plan on talking about it until Plex fixes it - realizing I’m not going to stop talking about it.
Or
This is the start of the longest running bug-gripe thread in the history of Plex Forums. I’m not going anywhere soon (I hope), but if Plex never deems it necessary to fix on the day I expire this 4000 page thread may have a chance of finally falling off the FRONT PAGE!

@leelynds said:
It’s a long post, but bear with me… snip

The Wombat Squad encodes that way because:

  1. They have no idea how to properly encode anything - nor care very much.
  2. Those dimensions result in what could be considered a correct aspect ratio - and that’s pretty much where The Squad stops worrying too much about it or those 36 pixels of resolution they arbitrarily whacked off a 576p item because they couldn’t be 4rsed to learn how to encode properly.
  3. in this case I believe this encode should fall under the SD category. Properly encoded it would have a storage resolution of 720x576 and be properly identified, but after having gone through the Wombat Grinder it doesn’t make it into a valid reporting window (and Plex shouldn’t try to cater to Wombats - Ef 'em).

Incidentally, I think Handbrake will let you go wider than 720 if you turn off Keep Aspect Ratio - or some other fiddle. I have 3 Wombat Encodes in the Handbrake Queue right now and don’t want to try to confuse Handbrake at the moment. I’ll check on that later.

LOL … I guess we will have to agree to disagree.

If you don’t encode your videos at 576 lines of video resolution with an anamorphic flag, then you have made the decision to “squash” it yourself.

You can’t blame the software, and you can’t blame Plex if it misidentifies it. I think we should simply ask to have Plex identify the more common resolutions properly, that is 1080p, 720p, 576p, 480p and SD. Surely every video can fit into one of those categories, and a few pixels one way or the other has to be acceptable.

@JuiceWSA said:
3) in this case I believe this encode should fall under the SD category.

Standing ovation!

@leelynds said:
LOL … I guess we will have to agree to disagree.

If you don’t encode your videos at 576 lines of video resolution with an anamorphic flag, then you have made the decision to “squash” it yourself.

You can’t blame the software, and you can’t blame Plex if it misidentifies it. I think we should simply ask to have Plex identify the more common resolutions properly, that is 1080p, 720p, 576p, 480p and SD. Surely every video can fit into one of those categories, and a few pixels one way or the other has to be acceptable.

Actually I think we do agree on that point. If you chose (past tense) to encode something at 720x404, for instance, you where never too bothered about it being reported as SD. You did what you wanted, Plex reported it as SD and I’m fine with that.

What I’m NOT FINE with is when I take the time to encode something into a 720x480 package with my method or @zpaolo11x uses his method resulting 720x576 package we should be rewarded with a proper reporting by Plex. @zpaolo11x is getting a good reporting and I’m getting his report rammed down my throat!

&%$##^! (that’s me gagging). :slight_smile:

@leelynds said:
LOL … I guess we will have to agree to disagree.

All this goes in the direction of 4000 posts that JuiceWSA was talking about ;D

If you don’t encode your videos at 576 lines of video resolution with an anamorphic flag, then you have made the decision to “squash” it yourself.

Sure, enlarging to 1024x576 is stretching, reducing to 720x540 is squashing, both have their limitations but the first one retains the 576p vertical definition that’s the defining element of the standard. Anyway, that’s exactly the reason why I never squash or stretch the storage resolution. I only sometimes (but not always) crop the black bars off the 576 frame.

You can’t blame the software, and you can’t blame Plex if it misidentifies it.

We made too many examples and I don’t know now what you’re referring to, but my method allows to correctly identfy any 576p or 480p encode that maintains the original vertical definition (using enlarging to 1024 or cropping with anamorphic) and it does it by means of vertical number of pixels and aspec ratio. If Plex don’t want to use this, fine, there’s the following solution:

To me it would be acceptable if any 720(704)x576 with 4:3 or 16:9 aspect ratio was labeled 576p, any 720(704)x480 with 4:3 or 16:9 was labeled 480p. Anything else just label it SD. I would even, for the sake of purism, put the “SD” label on 1024x576 stretched PAL 16:9 or 720x336 NTSC DVD with black bars cropped and anamorphic wider than 16:9. Apply SD also to 640x480, I’m ok with that too :smiley: If Plex is not smart enough to do some calculations this is the best solution. 1080p and 720p is easier because there’s no anamorphic setting to confuse poor Plex with changing horizontal resolution.

I just ask Plex to stop “guessing” what people have done with an encode: if it’s strict 576p or 480p (anamorphic) then call it that, if it’s not and you (Plex) don’t want to do the math to tell what it is, just call it SD and stop guessing

@JuiceWSA said:
What I’m NOT FINE with is when I take the time to encode something into a 720x480 package with my method or @zpaolo11x uses his method resulting 720x576 package we should be rewarded with a proper reporting by Plex. @zpaolo11x is getting a good reporting and I’m getting his report rammed down my throat!

Ditto. Also there can be a list of common resolutions/aspect ratio to check against the file data to see what it is, a very simple list like this:

576p
720x576@1.77 (anamorphic 16:9 movie)
1024x576@1.77 (square pixel 16:9 movie)
720x554@1.85 (anamorphic 1.85:1 cropped movie)
1024x554@1.85 (square pixel 1.85:1 cropped movie)
720x404@2.54 (same story for most common AR factors)
1024x404@2.54
720x576@1.33
768x576@1.33

480p
720x480@1.77
854x480@1.77
720x460@1.85
854x460@1.85
720x336@2.54
854x336@2.54
720x480@1.33
640x480@1.33

As you can see checking the numbers, there’s no ambiguity even if one decides to crop the black bars.

@zpaolo11x said:
As you can see checking the numbers, there’s no ambiguity even if one decides to crop the black bars.

Also, for the wombat squad encoding a 16:9 movie as 720x404 with square pixels, of course this can be confusing in distinguishing between 576p and 480p. If you take this approach there’s no actual difference and it should be considered “SD”.

Also^2 this kind of encoding is not like encoding a letterboxed movie (that is a 16:9 film stored on a 4:3 DVD for example) because in that case the vertical resolution will be different again (remember no DVD has square pixels, even 4:3)

@zpaolo11x — my friend, with your last two posts, you have defined the various video resolutions almost exactly the way that I suggested a few pages back. In fact, you second post even disagreed with your first one, and you said a 720X404 should not be 576p or 480p but SD. Exactly what I said.

Why are we arguing, again?