RE5 Cutscene ratio question

[valentinesdead?]

This thread can have a quick death and be forgotten, and I'm probably a certified dummy for asking this, but bearing that RE4 and CVX are getting HD re-releases, I decided I wanted to redo my RE5 cutscene recordings, since back in the day, I didn't know exactly how to maximize the quality of my capture device, and the fact I now own a kick-ass editing program(VideoRedoSuite4), I figure I need to get my butt in gear in recapturing most of the series again. But anyways, my question concerns stretching the vertical axis of the picture, but leave the horizontal untouched to fill a 16:9 display.

For example. . .

before



after



So, is this simply stretching the picture irregularly, or a valid ratio adjustment. I'm not too fond of the idea of cropping the sides, even though that seems like what is normally done. I guess I'm justing asking for opinions on this. The difference in watching is a bit jarring at first, but really, the details of the scenes pop out so much more than in the original ratio. But, I just don't know. . .

What say the experts here?

[Guest]

I say keep the original resolution to be honest, looks kind of funky stretched... What I mean is, just keep it letterbox, don't stretch it or cut the sides. Of course I've never seen it in motion so I might have a different opinion then... Care to upload a clip? I could give you a better opinion then.

[valentinesdead?]

Yea. I can do that. It'll be later tonight before I can, but shouldn't be a problem. That's probably what I should have done in the first place. I've also done Sky High Skirmish, and I think it looks great. I might splice to parts of those scenes or something. Not sure. The thing is, with the vertical stretch, the footage comes across much more movie like, like your watching actors through a screen--but as I said, its was disorienting, but it's hard to tell whether it's just because nothings actually wrong with it, or it's just pure conception on my part.

Anyways, I'll get a vid up then.

[Undead Sega]

This is fairly easy to answer, I specifically logged on (after awhile) so I can respond to this. What you are doing is trying to cut out the black borders, which are there intentionally to give a cinematic look (aspect ratio of 2.35:1) from gameplay (16:9). Doing so (cropping the black borders but keeping the gameplay aspect ratio), would obviously stretch it vertically, thus distorting the image, so I think your evaluation of details looking better this way, is 'wrong'.

Do not touch it, unless you really want rid of the black borders, then somesort of hack or mod for them not to be displayed would be the solution.

[kevstah2004]

You know you can turn the bars off right?

[News Bot]

VirtualDub has a fairly decent resize filter that will resize to a resolution while retaining the aspect ratio (therefore eliminating 'stretching').

But it's almost always best to just crop the black borders and keep the resulting resolution. Unless you're good with filters, your video will end up looking worse than it would if you just kept it normal. Cropping the borders is especially helpful if you're watching the videos on your PC, as your PC will automatically fill out the video (which makes hard borders generally worthless, but necessary for Biohazard 5 since the game is rendered at full resolution and the borders are imposed over the image during cutscenes, so they're actually sacrificing what you can see for the cinematic quality), and this helps reduce size, as well as taking up less space if you're watching while performing other PC tasks.

Your videos should really just look like this:

http://projectumbrella.net/files/otherhoststuff/First%20Night%20of%20Autumn.mp4

http://projectumbrella.net/files/otherhoststuff/Desperate%20Escape.mp4

[valentinesdead?]

Before replying, first off--here's an upload of the two scenes I mentioned I "stretched" to test this out. Honestly, it looks really good(but we'll get to that in a sec). I should note that the audio is recorded in 5.1, and there's some glitches since I guess youtube is meant for stereo, but other than that. . .thanks to everyone for replying!

16:9 Test: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S853EjBQNso

This is fairly easy to answer, I specifically logged on (after awhile) so I can respond to this. What you are doing is trying to cut out the black borders, which are there intentionally to give a cinematic look (aspect ratio of 2.35:1) from gameplay (16:9). Doing so (cropping the black borders but keeping the gameplay aspect ratio), would obviously stretch it vertically, thus distorting the image, so I think your evaluation of details looking better this way, is 'wrong'.

There's no question that what I'm doing is playing with the image, but I was more wondering among the lines of whether stretching 2:35:1 is validly watchable way to watch the material. That's what I keep debating. But as far as things looking better--it really does, not so much because there's more detail in the picture(it's the same since the resolution is untouched, and 720p), but it's much more easy to see those kind of things with the picture actually filling my television screen. It makes the cutscenes even more dynamic, but again, I keep wondering if my eyes are playing tricks on me, haha.

You know you can turn the bars off right?

I don't have the PC version, so I don't have that option. But even if I could, the problem with that is you're getting all that extra space that isn't meant to be in the camera viewpoint. It kinda defeats the purpose. (Though most certainly the most legitimate way of getting a *true* 16:9 I suppose).

VirtualDub has a fairly decent resize filter that will resize to a resolution while retaining the aspect ratio (therefore eliminating 'stretching').

But it's almost always best to just crop the black borders and keep the resulting resolution. Unless you're good with filters, your video will end up looking worse than it would if you just kept it normal. Cropping the borders is especially helpful if you're watching the videos on your PC, as your PC will automatically fill out the video (which makes hard borders generally worthless, but necessary for Biohazard 5 since the game is rendered at full resolution and the borders are imposed over the image during cutscenes, so they're actually sacrificing what you can see for the cinematic quality), and this helps reduce size, as well as taking up less space if you're watching while performing other PC tasks.

Your videos should really just look like this:

http://projectumbrella.net/files/otherhoststuff/First%20Night%20of%20Autumn.mp4

http://projectumbrella.net/files/oth...e%20Escape.mp4

I don't know the first thing about video filters. But I can't use VirtualDub anyway since my file types are mt2s and h.264 encodes. But, I am a bit confused. Isn't cropping the borders the same thing as stretching the picture vertically? I mean, that's what I'm doing. It's the same resolution. The file has to reencode to do that, of course, but with videoredo, it's real easy to tweak the options and get an identical copy(as far as having no quality loss). But yeah, RE5's cutscenes are certainly meant for their native ratio, but I have never actually tried stretching one before, and it seems different from other ratios where I tinkered with it.

I guess in the end, it's in the eye of the beholder. I might end up convincing myself to stretch these, but, I would certainly like your and everyone else that's replied opinions on the youtube video--actually seeing it in motion. It seems very cinematic to me--intended ratio or not(but what do I know?)

But yeah, sorry to be a bother, and thanks again everyone. I apperciate the input!

[News Bot]

Whatever you're using to encode is stretching the image to make up for the space lost due to the removal of the black borders. Usually this is caused by not keeping the post-crop aspect ratio of the video.

Stretching is a bad idea in virtually all cases unless there isn't a lot of space gone in the first place or if the display/source is already suffering from ratio issues.

[valentinesdead?]

Okay. So after a couple days of sitting on the issue to think about, I think I have one final question of sort, but before that, Newsbot, I suppose this is what you meant by resizing and putting the footage in its proper aspect ratio without the black borders.

Native



2:21(35?):1



This is done in VideoRedo by selected 2:22(35?):1, and then stretching the borders out of the window. During playback, as you stated, the black borders are added by windows media player(or I suppose any other playback device). I suppose this is a step above keeping it in its native format, given there is a slight size increase that's hard to notice unless you compare this versus native. I didn't really notice that about your two videos you posted until I did this. Anyways, just wanting to check.

So, ok, anyways, after thinking about the stretching for a couple days, I realized I was asking the wrong question. Stretching the 2:35:1 ratio to fill an entire 16:9 ratio is certainly heavily distoring the ratio of the video. After getting over just how everything pops with the entire tv screen filled--yeah, the stretching isn't going to fly. So, with that in mind, can't I stretch the image to a certain extent on the screen, leaving some amount of black bars, to create a respectful ratio aspect? I mean, I'm thinking along the lines of anamorphic widescreen. I recall that 2:35:1 in dvds can be stretched into 16:9--but I'm thinking about dvds on 4:3 tv's. My question is that if I stretch the video to a certain extent in a 16:9 ratio, but not stretching the top and bottom to completely crop out the bars(trying to create a 16:9 image in a 16:9 window), is that a good alternative? I really don't mean to drag this topic out. This is pretty much my idea(it should have been my first one, I apologize). I think I already know what the answer is, but, here are a few screencaps of different cropping positions I've tried.

(First number is top crop value-Second is bottom crop value)

40-40



50-40



50-50




60-40



60-60



The hard part about this is obviously, I have no real reference to work this off of as far as a number value, but, a couple of them look pretty convincing as far as a "anamorphic" image, but I'm just throwing these out there. I'm I totally wrong here too with the anamorphic analogy?