G-Spot - AVI Codec Information Appliance

Have you ever downloaded an AVI file only to find that none of your media players will play it? Or, maybe you're able to play it, but you try to burn a VCD or DVD-- only to find that when you play that VCD / DVD in your set-top DVD player, the aspect ratio of the video is out of proportion?

There's a simple app to solve this problem for you.

G-Spot Codec Information Appliance will take the guess work out of it for you. To save you the time of trying every media player in your arsenal, simply drag and drop the file into G-Spot and click "render". it will tell you if the file is able to be played or not. (i believe it attempts to use all codecs installed to render the file... i believe in some cases, a file will not play, but if the proper codec WERE installed, g-spot would successfully render the file, and inform you of the codec used)

The more complicated, and more useful function of the player is that it can help you determine how to set the aspect ratio in your mpeg encoder software.

You need to take note of the Video info in the XY box in gspot. Use that info in this simple forumla:

Open your .avi in GSpot. Make note of the dimensions of the movie (Aspect Ratio). For my example, Im converting Signs, which is 576x304 (1.89:1) [=36:19]. 576x304 is the info. we need to know here to move on to the next step.

- Now, grab a piece of paper lol. A little bit of simple math in this step.
- The orig. avi file is 576x304, and DVD's (for some reason) only like 720x480, so after you encode & burn the movie, it will be stretched out, unless we do something about it.
- We're going to change the dimensions of the movie.
- Here are the formula(e) to use: width ÷ 720 = A . In my case, that is 576 ÷ 720 = 0.8
- Then: height ÷ A . Which for me is 304 ÷ 0.8 = 380
- Our new dimensions for the movie are now 720x380
- Good idea -> write down the new dimensions

formula quote taken from videohelp.com

enjoy your perfectly converted AVI's on your set-top player in VCD or DVD format.
note, I recommend Canopus Procoder 2 or MainConcept Mpeg encoder to do the actual AVI to Mpeg conversion for VCD. Programs like Nero Vision Express will do all the aspect ratio conversion for you if you're going to burn a DVD instead. TMpgEnc by Pegasys is a FREE mpeg encoder, and likely results in the best video quality due to its high tweakability (did i invented that word?), but it's a little more complex to get the hang of it. the other aforementioned progs are not freeware.