Screencapping widescreen letterbox DVDs

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OK, I'm trying to screencap a 16:9 babylon5 DVD and when I do, the image comes out all stretched at 4:3 in Photoshop.

How do I get around this? Is there a plugin to convert the size accurately? Manually fixing it is driving me batty.

Any image expert0rs got suggestions? This is in Windoze and Photoshop if that matters.

― Trayce (trayce), Wednesday, 16 February 2005 05:43 (twenty years ago)

Sounds like Photoshop is receiving the raw stream from the DVD.

When you play an anamorphic DVD on a 4:3 display, the player actually compresses the image so it looks normal, and adds letterbox bars. The actual image itself, the way it's originally stored on the DVD, is stretchy.

I reckon the best thing to do is accept the stretched 4:3 capture and resize it, because that's exactly what the DVD player software does.

[Apologies if you already know this]

― Autumn Almanac (Autumn Almanac), Wednesday, 16 February 2005 05:48 (twenty years ago)

The best way to check this is to get a DVD that's natively in 4:3 [e.g. Futurama], and try capturing that in Photoshop. If it captures without stretching, then I'm correct and you owe me $10 for being ace.

― Autumn Almanac (Autumn Almanac), Wednesday, 16 February 2005 05:50 (twenty years ago)

Well you're right on that, but I'm not gi'ng ya $10 for it ;P

Its just letterboxed ones wot is the issue. And yeah Ive been resizing them but have to do so manually. I guess the question is, is there a ratio I can work out, to convert X x Y pixels to be unstretched in the right amount? I've just been using visual guesswork.

― Trayce (trayce), Wednesday, 16 February 2005 06:07 (twenty years ago)

Yeah there's definitely an arbitrary ratio. I'll try and find out what it is...

― Autumn Almanac (Autumn Almanac), Wednesday, 16 February 2005 06:08 (twenty years ago)

I'm useless with maths you see.

― Trayce (trayce), Wednesday, 16 February 2005 06:09 (twenty years ago)

Can't find a bloody thing.

― Autumn Almanac (Autumn Almanac), Wednesday, 16 February 2005 06:15 (twenty years ago)

Well what use are you then, you... useless person! ;)

― Trayce (trayce), Wednesday, 16 February 2005 06:18 (twenty years ago)

I was hoping to find a large 16:9 screen cap on the web and do a resize to calculate the difference but I can't fucking find one. Fuck.

― Autumn Almanac (Autumn Almanac), Wednesday, 16 February 2005 06:21 (twenty years ago)

I posted this on LJ and my friend neef, bless 'im, said "use a DVD capture tool instead of prntscreen". As if I wasnt already. ARGH.

― Trayce (trayce), Wednesday, 16 February 2005 07:25 (twenty years ago)

Well that's mentalist because prsc will capture the letterboxed image.

It's actually good that Photoshop captures the stretchy image because you get a better-quality image.

― Autumn Almanac (Autumn Almanac), Wednesday, 16 February 2005 07:51 (twenty years ago)

Yeah good point. If I knew how I'd make a macro for this, oh well.

― Trayce (trayce), Wednesday, 16 February 2005 07:59 (twenty years ago)

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Screencapping widescreen letterbox DVDs - help!