Handbrake: How to Handle a Movie That Uses TWO Aspect Ratios?

[clayj]

I am speaking specifically about TRON Legacy here, although I suppose this question would also apply to other movies that share a similar situation.

Here's what I did: I used MakeMKV to rip my Blu-ray of TRON Legacy to an MKV file, and then I used Handbrake to convert that MKV file into an M4V file formatted specifically for use on my iPad (1024 x whatever, etc.).

Here's the problem: TRON Legacy STARTS out as a 2.35:1 widescreen movie, but during various scenes in the movie, it SWITCHES to a 1.78:1 (16:9) widescreen format which is what was used in IMAX presentations. It switches back and forth between these two formats. But because the movie STARTS in 2.35:1, Handbrake wants to rip the entire movie in that format and so it's 2.35:1 all the way through -- the 1.78:1 scenes are being truncated at the top and bottom to fit that format. What I want to know is whether there are settings in Handbrake that will let me tell it, "Rip the movie so that it's 1024 pixels wide at all times, but vary the height as required by each particular scene."

Thanks for any help!

 

[McGiord]

Interesting question. I do not know the answer.

Can you process only the chapters with one ratio and then the others, and then use iMovie to put them together?

 

[songmeesay]

When I encoded Tron Legacy I ended up clicking on the Picture Settings at the top after selecting the iPad preset and changed cropping from Auto to Custom. From there I adjusted cropping settings down to 0 which gave me a resolution of 1024x576. During playback when there are 2.35.:1 scenes, there are lighter black bars due to the actual resolution of the video, but during the IMAX scenes those bars aren't there (of course the "iPad's" black bars are still there due to it's 4:3 screen). So basically the encode stays at 1.78:1 the whole time with "extra" black bars for the 2.35:1 scenes.

I never checked on the chapters option so I'm not sure on that.

 

[clayj]

When I encoded Tron Legacy I ended up clicking on the Picture Settings at the top after selecting the iPad preset and changed cropping from Auto to Custom. From there I adjusted cropping settings down to 0 which gave me a resolution of 1024x576. During playback when there are 2.35.:1 scenes, there are lighter black bars due to the actual resolution of the video, but during the IMAX scenes those bars aren't there (of course the "iPad's" black bars are still there due to it's 4:3 screen). So basically the encode stays at 1.78:1 the whole time with "extra" black bars for the 2.35:1 scenes.

I never checked on the chapters option so I'm not sure on that.

Bingo. You are The Man. Using the cropping option to set all to zero resulted in a 1024 x 576 movie with black bars during the 2.35:1 scenes.

Thanks!