Aspect ratio in itunes

Hi
How can I make itunes play my 5:4 aspect video (720*576) in 16:9? Right now I convert them to 720*404 to get the correct aspect ratio but that seems like a bad idea.
Cheers

You can't. iTunes itself only plays a movie at the aspect ratio that the movie is provided in and cannot override. If you want your movie to play at 16:9, you'll have to convert the movie to the correct resolution, cropping the frames if necessary. I'm not sure what the point would be, though; the movie content is only the aspect it is, and changing it isn't going to give you any more picture in the frame than it has now.
Message was edited by: Dave Sawyer

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Aspect Ratio and Itunes/Apple TV

So I recently bought an apple tv and have set it up in my room. I have been trying to play my tv shows that I already owned on my computer. My movie files are programed as 4:3 but in any other video player I can set it to play in 16:9 and they look exactly how they should. So now if I try to play my movies through itunes so I can see them on my Apple Tv they are all smashed. Is anyone else having this problem? There is no way to change the aspect ratio in Itunes. So I either have to wait until they make that an option, Watch the movies on my laptop, or watch them all smashed on my Tv through Itunes. I hope they fix this soon

Welcome to the Apple Communities.
If you don't wish to re-encode everything, the AR is controlled by flags rather than being encoded into the movie video data, you can change these flags as indeed you do when you watch them on your mac. I'm not sure which application you use to change the flags on your mac but it may well allow you to save the changes. if it doesn't there are a number of applications such as Quicktime 7, which will let you save them.

16:9 Apple TV export playing with incorrect aspect ratio in iTunes.

Hi, I've exported a 16:9 PAL movie from FCP using 'Export for Apple TV' which plays fine in Quicktime (1024x576 m4v file), my problem is when I import it into iTunes it changes the aspect ratio to 720x576. If I 'show in Finder' and play the iTunes import using Quicktime it plays fine (1024x576).
So it seems a problem with iTunes?
If anyone else has fixed this problem I'd love to know how.
Many thanks,
Dave

For anyone interested...
I've been in contact with Elgato http://www.elgato.com/elgato/int/mainmenu/home.en.html
regarding this as they are part of this issue.
They have confirmed that there is a bug in the latest releases of iTunes that is causing the problem.
They have been communicating their information to Apple but have had little response to date.
Maybe we'll get a fix when Apple could be bothered.

Aspect Ratio in iTunes different than Qt and FrontRow

On my fully updated G5 with 10.5.1, I have some tv shows which display correctly in Quicktime and FrontRow but the aspect ratio is all wrong when playing in iTunes.
The shows are NTSC recorded off the air on a Tivo and trancoded (and deinterlaced) to mov using the vlc command line. In Quicktime they display correctly with the 4:3 aspect ratio. When I add them to iTunes, iTunes plays them with a 2:3 aspect ratio. If I then play them from the iTunes library with FrontRow, it plays correctly at 4:3.
It's as if iTunes were playing the content with square pixels instead of paying attention to the aspect ratio in the Quicktime file.
I've put an 800KB sample movie on my iDisk at http://idisk.mac.com/colinandlinda-Public which demonstrates the problem. (For some reason, this small movie doesn't show up in FrontRow, possibly because it is small? If anyone needs it, I can provide a larger movie).
Are there any solutions for this oddity other than transforming the movie into a different resolution with square pixels?

For anyone interested...
I've been in contact with Elgato http://www.elgato.com/elgato/int/mainmenu/home.en.html
regarding this as they are part of this issue.
They have confirmed that there is a bug in the latest releases of iTunes that is causing the problem.
They have been communicating their information to Apple but have had little response to date.
Maybe we'll get a fix when Apple could be bothered.

Wrong aspect ratio in itunes ?

I have the proplem that itunes doesn´t display videos properly. I have recorded TV shows with Elgato EyeTV and then converted them with Turbo.264 so i can watch them in iTunes. They have have 076x550 pixels after i converted tehm and if i watch them with quicktime player everything is ok. But if add this video file to my itunes library ITunes telle me that is has 1385x550 pixels and if i watch it in iTunes it is distorted, it is much to broad. Is there a bug in iTunes?

Sometimes this can be a result of the encoder not providing the proper information to Quicktime in iTunes...dunno of the specifics, but users have had aspect ratio problems with other Apple apps that used quicktime, and reencoding the videos using quicktime player helped, if my memory serves me correctly. I'd recommend using Quicktime to convert your movies instead of using Turbo.264, or take the product of Turbo.264 and re-convert it through Quicktime. Try various settings and such in the conversions to see if they help.

Modifying aspect ratio of iTunes TV shows

I recently downloaded the 2008 Stanley Cup Final on iTunes TV. The video is vertically distorted; that is to say, it plays back at a 4:3 aspect ratio when the video is clearly taken from the 16:9 HD broadcast. How do I set iTunes to play the video back at 16:9 instead of at 4:3?

Ok. I've done that. It says:
Normal Size: 640 x 480 pixels
Display Size: 640 x 480 pixels
Scaled Size: 640 x 480 pixels
Preserve Aspect Ratio is checked.
Offset: 0 x 0 pixels
The "Scaled Size", "Preserve Aspect Ratio", "Offset", and all other fields below them are shaded gray (i.e., unmodifiable).
I appear to be able to use the shift-drag method to distort the QuickTime window (this doesn't work in iTunes). However this gives me an approximation, rather than an exact, 16:9 aspect ratio.

Wrong aspect ratio of video imported to itunes

Imported video from eyetv to AppleTV has the incorrect aspect ratio in itunes but the correct aspect ratio in QT.
For example a file with dimensions 1024x576 is reported and plays 1489x576.
This problem was solved by installing Perian, but a recent update of itunes has restored the problem.

I have precisely the same problem. In the past (over the last year or less) I have used Perian to fix iTunes' incorrect display of video. The video has come from EyeTV export via Turbo.264 encoding but the latest update of iTunes (8.0.2) has "restored the problem". I have tried to reinstall Perian, but I'm not sure if I managed to fully remove it first. When "Remove Perian" is selected from the Perian Preference Pane, it doesn't fully remove it. The Perian Preference Pane remains......
Hopefully, a Perian update might solve this once more.....

Quicktime x displaying incorrect aspect ratio

Hi,
I have a strange display issue with QT X which is occurring on both my MacBook Pro and Mac Pro.
Quicktime X is displaying all movies in a squashed aspect ratio. For example a 640x360 movie is displayed (actual size setting) as 640x340. The same movie displays correctly in QT 7 Pro. The same movie also displays in the correct aspect ratio in iTunes.
What QT X appears to be doing is displaying the images squashed by 20 pixels. for instance a 1920x1080 actually displays as 1920x1060. The image is not trimmed just squashed into a frame that is 20 pixels too short. It happens with all movies including ones downloaded from Apple.
any ideas anyone?
Thanks

Are other people are encountering this distortion?
I'm not and I routinely convert and proof 4 to 12 files a day as part of my processing activities. In addition, neither test files download from the trailers area nor files sent me for examination seem to display this aberration.
I wonder if it is something to do with the transport commands moving from underneath the frame to within the picture area.
Not sure what you are referring to here. If referring to the controls which are visible when the cursor is hovering above the player window, they have nothing to do with changes in the display dimensions as detailed by the "Inspector" window on a properly functioning system.
I'm not sure this is the issue
Have explained the basic mechanism governing the normal display of files played in the local players. Basically, either the problem is in the file itself or the problem is in the manner in which good files might be playing in a corrupted or software conflicted player. Comparing playback under different user accounts or on different systems might reveal if the problem is local to your account and/or system. If you don't have a secondary system available locally, posting a test file for comparison by others might determine the problem source.

Everytime I open itunes the cover flow size returns to default. How Can I lock the aspect ratio?

Whenever I shut down my computer and restart it, the aspect ratio of the images in itunes coverflow reset to their default size. How can I keep them where I set them.

I have an issue somewhat like that, except it doesn't happen when I shut down or restart my computer. Mine resets each time I click the green resize button (using an iMac) to minimize iTunes to the mini player. Oddly enough, if I resize the cover flow, switch to a different view (ie. library without cover flow) and then hit the resize button to switch to mini player, upon maximizing iTunes again, I can switch back to the cover flow and it will have stayed the same size. Obviously I'm not going to go through that process each time I want to minimize iTunes to mini player, but when I simply minimize it when in cover flow view, as you mentioned in your post, it resets the aspect ratio each time. Clearly this isn't a massive issue as I'm still able to use all the other functions of iTunes perfectly fine, but I have to admit it is very annoying and has been persistent for the last few hours. Please if you've found a fix let me know, however I noticed you are using Windows 7 so we likely have two completely different issues.

ITunes changing aspect ratio of recorded TV shows

I use Elgato's EyeTV to record TV programmes, and their Turbo264 plug-in to encode for the Apple TV. All the programmes added to my iTunes library are suddenly appearing with the aspect ratio of 1456*576.
I am certain that this is an iTunes problem rather than an Elgato problem because:
1) If you look at the file properties in Finder the files are the correct aspect ratio of 1024*576
2) I recorded an entire series in December and watched the first two, which displayed correctly, but appear to have become retrospectively stretched.

Hi Richard,
sounds like you are suffering from the same sort of issue I am;
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1377284&tstart=0
Played-back programmes are ending up extremely letterboxed through iTunes and if they weren't wide-screen to start with they appear as a window in centre screen.
The weird thing is if you open the iTunes library files using Quicktime you will find they display in the same strange way until you change a couple of playback settings. Then they appear perfectly.
It would seem that you can't make the same playback setting changes in iTunes.

ITunes stretching videos, changing aspect ratios

I use Elgato's EyeTV to record TV programmes, and their Turbo264 plug-in to encode for the Apple TV. All the programmes added to my iTunes library are suddenly appearing with the aspect ratio of 1456*576.
I am certain that this is an iTunes problem rather than an Elgato problem because:
1) If you look at the file properties in Finder the files are the correct aspect ratio of 1024*576
2) I recorded an entire series in December and watched the first two, which displayed correctly, but appear to have become retrospectively stretched.
Bizarrely this only appears to apply to recorded programmes or movies recorded from the TV, content acquired elsewhere is OK. It also only appears to apply only to content with a width of 1024.
Any thoughts?

Hi there...
it would seem that people are increasingly reporting this issue. See my thread here;
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1377284&tstart=0
and others such as these;
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1240053&tstart=30
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1224419&tstart=90
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1379952&tstart=90
Hopefully Apple will look at what is going on here.
You'll see in my thread the funny thing is you can fix the issue when you open/view the files in QuickTime but a lack of view setting options in iTunes means that the same can't be done there.

TV Shows from iTunes in different aspect ratios

I bought the first series of LOST from the iTunes store, and all of these episodes are the same aspect ratio, and with my Apple TV they fit the TV screen well. I bought season two, and the first episode is the same aspect ratio, although the next episodes are displayed in a squarer format. Is this something I need to change to get them to display in the same way as the first series, or is it just how they come from the iTunes store?
It's a bit annoying to have them with two black bars at each side, although I don't know if it's an iTunes setting issue, or the format of the videos themselves. It's strange that the first episode is one format, although the next appear to be different.
Any help or advice would be great!

I heard back from iTunes store who added the series to my account so I could download it again. They noted that the second and third episodes were the wrong aspect ratio. I re-downloaded the episodes, but they are the same. They've said that it will be corrected in the future.

Aspect ratio screwed up on import into iTunes

As the subject says, my aspect ratio is screwed up. Right now, I have a video that has a ratio of 640x368. It plays that way in both Windows and Mac Quicktime. When I import it into iTunes, the resolution ends up as 480x360, and the video is squished. I can't figure out why.
Some background. This is only happening with my Slings & Arrows DVD. Hasn't happened with any others (yet), but why this one is unique, is that while DVD players and software DVD players recognize this as a 16:9 aspect ratio DVD, most of my encoders do not. I am using a GPU based encoder called Badaboom. On most DVDs, when the display res is set to 640x480, and the aspect ratio is set to "Fill to Aspect", the output resolution ends up as 640x360. Not the case with this DVD. Instead, I select "Fill to screen" and then force the 640x360 resolution.
Fair enough, this all seems to work fine and dandy. Quicktime sees the right resolution. I'm all happy. Quicktime plays the video just fine. Even better, but noooo, I import it into iTunes, then boom. 480x360 with squished video.
Any ideas as to how I can resolve this issue?

HDV material is horizontally compressed to help reduce the file size. You need to expand the image out to full width in an image editing application like Photoshop.
The spacing and frame rate are used when exporting image sequences.

Video With Incorrect Aspect Ratio

I am currently using EyeTv and exporting the video to itunes using the apple tv preset since I want to use itunes as my video library manager. When I watch it in itunes it appears that it is trying to fit a 16:9 aspect ratio onto the 4:3 monitor, but it plays correctly when watch it using quicktime. Is this a bug, is there a different setting I need to use, or do I have to export the video using different settings. There wasn't an issue using using the 7.5 version but even after the 8.0.1 it still is there. Any ideas? Thanks.

Just learned to export from eyetv using the h264 setting and upgrading to handbrake 0.92

Aspect ratio bug with analog TVs?

I just bought an AppleTV, and connected it via component cables to a 4:3 TV (it's an older TV, has component inputs but only supports 480i, and it's 4:3, not widescreen).
The problem is that all 4:3 content that I have is squished horizontally on the AppleTV. And the same content plays fine on a variety of computers in iTunes, QuickTime, etc. Say I take a video file that's 640x480 (that's a 4:3 aspect ratio), and when played on a computer it looks correct. If I play it on the AppleTV, everything looks too narrow, and there are black bars on the left and right.
If I reencode the same video file to 720x480, then it looks correct on the AppleTV (fills the screen with no black bars, and people don't look squished). However, then it looks funny when played on any a computer, or anything else that isn't the AppleTV (now, people are fat, and there are black bars top and bottom).
My take is this is an AppleTV bug -- analog TVs (in the US anyway) have a resolution approximating 720x480, but an aspect ratio of 4:3, so the pixels aren't square. The AppleTV should be compensating for this (if it's gonna be the bridge between the digital world of H.264 files that come from computers with square pixels, and the analog world of NTSC TVs with non-square pixels, it should hide the differences) and isn't. In short, the AppleTV should be taking 640x480 content (or anything that's 4:3 with square pixels) and making it fill the TV screen, no matter that the TV screen has 720x480 slightly narrower pixels.
However, if I'm right, why aren't more people complaining about this; I can't be the first to notice? Am I the only one trying to connect the AppleTV to a 4:3 TV set?
Or, am I off base, and there's a simple explanation, or some setting I missed?
What I'm after is a way to take the media I've already encoded that plays fine on a Mac and make it play correctly on the AppleTV, and also a way to encode new media so that it plays fine both on the Mac and on the AppleTV, but I haven't been able to find it yet.

Also, I've read what I can find on the web, especially this excellent article: http://www.ilounge.com/index.php/articles/comments/the-complete-guide-to-ipod-vi deo-formats-and-display-resolutions/. They have a really good explanation of anamorphic encoding, and how it's represented in QuickTime.
I'm using Handbrake (0.9.1) to encode, by the way, and its PAR setting for anamorphic encoding works fine with QuickTime; whether I encode to true 640x480 or PAR 640x480 (which results in a file that actually stores 716x480 but displays at 636x480 in my case) it ends up correct on a Mac and incorrect on the AppleTV+analog display.
Is there perhaps some extra display information that can be added to an .mp4 file, which will be honored by the AppleTV but ignored by everything else (including QuickTime on a computer), which can change the display size? I'd love to encode everything with anamorphic encoding so that the actual file stores 720x480 pixels, but a computer will render this at 640x480, and the AppleTV render it at 720x480 (all those numbers are for 4:3 content, again).

Aspect ratio in itunes

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