[Idea] UAR: Ultimate Aspect Ratio - any interest?

[deleted user]

Yeah, it would likely be erratic af, but might still be fun I think.

You know what would be even cooler? A plugin for a video player that can read specific metadata from the video stream and automatically "extract" one of the three contained sources. That is, the metadata would contain the exact coordinates of the edges of each contained frame, and then on playback you could choose to simply display one of these as big as possible on the screen. That metadata could itself come in the form of subtitles, or be embedded in the video stream, for example I think h264 has some potential for custom metadata, though it would probably need one to modify the source code of x264. If someone were dedicated enough to write such a plugin, this could be fun.

That way you could distribute a 3-AR version in a single file. Kinda surprised this was never done by the industry tbh.

Think about the scenario: You put in your Dark Knight Blu Ray and your Blu Ray player offers you the option to choose any of these:
1. 2.35:1 throughout
2. 2.35:1 with IMAX as 16:9
3. 2:35:1 with IMAX full 4:3
4. 16:9 throughout
5. 16:9 throughout, IMAX 4:3
6. 4:3 throughout

The playback software/blu ray player could automatically adapt to the display that is being used and utilize as much of the screen as possible for each shot. If you have a 4:3 screen, it will show full IMAX scenes etc. Studios could create individual framing for each scene for each AR.

It would be rather trivial to create software-wise (compared to all the other stuff codecs do), especially when you start out with one main master anyway.

[spoRv]

I must confess I never run an analisys pass, so I don't know what that stat file contains, but I do think there are cropping coordinates, along with frame numbers. Can you confirm that?

Well, about your idea, I thought the same few months ago (https://fanrestore.com/thread-1262.html), and it would be pretty easy... how? Well, a simple avisynth script! At least, it could be played by MPC and VLC, two of the most used free players. Another cool application? Discrete luma and chroma layers, to be combined and get different color gradings/contrast - one luma and two chroma for two versions, two luma and two chroma for four versions, three luma and three chroma for nine versions etc. (even it would eat a lot of space, at least chroma takes up 1/4th of luma...)

Another thing I was thinking was, why the industry does not add avisynth support in their hardware players?!?

[deleted user]

Check this: https://github.com/introspected/AutoOver...layStat.cs

It appears to me that the file contains the following data for each frame/segment: Diff,X,Y,Width,Height,CropLeft,CropTop,CropRight,CropBottom,Angle

Your AVISynth idea is genius man! Why not do that? At least for this particular UAR application that's really smart thinking. Only concern to me would be performance. Can every computer keep up?

Hardware players will never support it, it is much too complex. That's why I suggested the metadata idea. Too many variables. What do you do if a random plugin throws some random bug on a consumer player? Naaah.

As for the different color gradings, I have to refer you back to my idea with the HALD CLUTs that I already presented a few times. You could include different color gradings as easily as including a set of HALD CLUTs, each applied to a subset of scenes/shots. Now, my super fancy idea adapted to this particular case is to create an entire second video stream dedicated to a lossless HALD CLUT and including it in the mkv. In theory it could be frame-accurate (frame-accurate color grading), but it would likely eat up too much space, so I would go with a version that uses a median across each scene that has reasonably consistent color grading. Will also reduce color-grading flicker.

Mind you, this would already be possible to do right now! In theory. MKV is compatible with Lagarith, which could be used for the HALD CLUT video stream. An AVISynth script could be used to regrade on-the-fly by reading both video streams and using the second one for grading the first one. One would only need to write an AVISynth plugin for HALD CLUTs. Which should be fairly trivial to do.

Do the whole thing as a video player plugin and efficiency likely goes up manyfold.

Upside of this idea: No wasted space on multiple chroma/luma planes that are probably hardly 100% compatible to each other anyway. The CLUT HOPEFULLY (I haven't tried it yet) compresses very well and can be used to pretty perfectly reconstruct the grading (it's essentially a 3D LUT).

This is the same idea I suggested to you for transferring the matrix cam grading to me, if you remember. (still haven't gotten around to do the scene detection)

[spoRv]

Got a look at that page, and indeed you are correct; a script that do that would be "easy" - and AFAIK any quite recent PC could handle a simple resize on the fly - it is what they always do when we play any video file which is not at our display native resolution, isn't that?

HALD CLUT idea: remember it (more or less), but I lost my mind at the time... even if I don't understand precisely how it works, probably it could be done on the fly as well. I strongly encourage you to test your idea!

[spoRv]

Alien³ - preliminary tests

"A little bit more image also on sides, and a new color grading?"


"More drool... NOOO!"


"What do you mean with white clipping?"


http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/132920

[spoRv]

The Dark Tower - BD vs UAR: http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/133255

[deleted user]

What open matte source did you use for Dark Tower?

[spoRv]

Terminator 3 - finally, after three years from the first teorized UAR version, this will be soon made for real!



Yell with me: "more bobs for anybody!" - http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/133261

[deleted user]

BEEEEWBS!

[spoRv]

BEEEEWBS!

---

Alien: Resurrection in UAR: because every single pixel counts!™


http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/133426

(please do note that UAR has not only more image top and bottom here, but also on both sides!)

EDIT: forgot to mention that BD misses two frames... OK, it's not SO important, but when you buy an official release, the minimum you would expect is to get ALL the frames, with the BIGGEST frame possible (OAR, in this case); at least, the video quality is excellent!