DVD movies with subs on iPhone 4? *picture added*

[Anastacio]

Alright, I have been trying to figure out for two months now, how to convert a movie to the right ratio, pixels etc.

I made a clean rip of my 'Notebook' movie and wanted to add a subtitle. The first thing I do, is burning in the .srt on top of the movie in VirtualDubMod. Then I convert the movie in Handbrake.

The annoying part is, that the end result is a movie which looks like a 21:9 format (i'm no tech-guy, so don't know all the correct terms) instead of being the same size as the iPhone screen. The movie is around 400-500mb as well.

Can you tell me which settings I need to configure in Handbrake?
In 'Presets' I select 'iPhone & iPod Touch'. The source is 624x256 and has an aspect ratio of 2.44. Should I keep 'Aspect Ratio', should I change the Width (which is currently set at 480) and height? What other settings do I need to configure?

The movie max must be 3GB (as I am dedicating 10GBs on the iPhone for movies), should I rip one of my Blu-rays instead for better quality? Hope you don't mind the long post.

 

[Ivan P]

When Handbrake uses 'iPhone' as a preset, it only means that it will convert the file into an iPhone-friendly format and compresses the file as much as it can so you won't notice any loss of quality on such a small screen. I personally wouldn't toggle with the aspect ratio either - if you did then you'd either have a movie that looks really cramped (as it would have to 'squish' it to fit on the screen), or a movie where only the centre of the frame is visible, possibly resulting in a lot of the scenes looking terrible (as it would crop off the sides of the video). Also, ripping Blu-ray instead won't really make any difference, in the end you'll be compressing the file to a certain size and it will be playing on the exact same size screen - any difference in quality it will make will be negligible, and probably non-existent.

 

[Anastacio]

Thanks for the answer. =)
Though, when converted in Handbrake my movie ends up looking like it's 21:9 format and I haven't touched any of the settings other than choosing the 'iPhone & iPod Touch' preset.

Shall it look like that? Will it add black bars automatically when watching on the iPhone?
Could it be VirtualDubMod that is changing the width and height of the movie (even though I'm only burning in subtitles) ?

 

[Anastacio]

Does this format look right for the iPhone?

 

[Ivan P]

Yeah I don't see any problem with that, personally. It just means that is how the movie was originally filmed/released (if you watch it on a tv, it should have the black bars on the top and bottom of the picture, which is the same as what will happen on the phone).

 

[Avatar74]

Thanks for the answer. =)
Though, when converted in Handbrake my movie ends up looking like it's 21:9 format and I haven't touched any of the settings other than choosing the 'iPhone & iPod Touch' preset.

Shall it look like that? Will it add black bars automatically when watching on the iPhone?
Could it be VirtualDubMod that is changing the width and height of the movie (even though I'm only burning in subtitles) ?

It looks fine but I might suggest using the AppleTV or Universal preset, because the iPhone preset cuts the output to 480x320, whereas DVD resolution is 720x480 (with a 0.9 pixel aspect ratio; 16:9 frame aspect ratio).

The thing is, an iPhone file blown up for a larger screen would look visibly mediocre. But the larger universal or AppleTV format does work on iPhone 3G and 3GS. Although it's a larger file size... and if that's a concern stick with the iPhone preset.

The iPhone automatically mattes the video, regardless of the aspect ratio of the source... so no presets should need to be tweaked.

The Notebook was filmed in JDC Scope (2.35:1) so at a glance, it does appear to look correct in the image you've provided.