Aspect Ratios is another area I never done much with... but willing to learn. So I am in the need to know the best way to verify an aspect ratio. I remember reading a little about this here... but can not find it now. But I remember it having to do with taking a vidcap of the movie/show and using a program to figure it out So questions....

1. What (preferably free) software do I need to do the measurements with?
2. I use PowerDVD (an old version) Do I need this set up a certain way to get accurate info for aspect?
3. Once I get the measurements how do I figure out the aspect ratio (what math do I use)?
4. For some reason I think this one may have been an argument here before... hope it has been settled... but do we go with the exact aspect ratio or round to the nearest built in... or what?

The reason I am asking this now is because I have a boxset of 12 movies coming... and instead of using the prepared child profiles (4 movies per disc) I am making a manual profile for each movie. Some movies are widescreen some are Full Framed from what I understand... so would like to put the right info in each profile. And while doing so... I figure if I learn the correct way all the better for when I do contributions. 

You take a screen capture (I used VLC Media Player) then open the image in a photo editing programme, here i used Microsoft Paint it will then tell you the pixel width and height you then divide the two numbers which gives you 1.7770833 which rounding up gives you 1.78:1, if it has black bars top and bottom you need to crop these before measuring.

Often times though you will end up with "non standard" aspect ratios like for example 1:81, 2:38, etc., and you will get into a conflict with voters over whether these should be "rounded up" to standard ratios or not (even if screencaps are provided).

Quoting Grendell:

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Often times though you will end up with "non standard" aspect ratios like for example 1:81, 2:38, etc., and you will get into a conflict with voters over whether these should be "rounded up" to standard ratios or not (even if screencaps are provided).

Well I will give it a go... and if it seems like a problem I will just pull the contribution and keep it local.

Quoting Forget_the_Rest:

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The other thing to remember is to remove any black borders as otherwise everything will be 1.78:1!

Got it! 

Quoting Grendell:

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Often times though you will end up with "non standard" aspect ratios like for example 1:81, 2:38, etc., and you will get into a conflict with voters over whether these should be "rounded up" to standard ratios or not (even if screencaps are provided).

As you should, Grendell. It doesn't take very much of an error to throw off the ratio. Don't use any non-standard ratio. In short, I don't trust yours, mine or anyone else's ability to not make a mistake in the measurement.

Skip

Quoting Forget_the_Rest:

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Quoting Prof. Kingsfield:

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Quoting Grendell:

Quote:
Often times though you will end up with "non standard" aspect ratios like for example 1:81, 2:38, etc., and you will get into a conflict with voters over whether these should be "rounded up" to standard ratios or not (even if screencaps are provided).

As you should, Grendell. It doesn't take very much of an error to throw off the ratio. Don't use any non-standard ratio. In short, I don't trust yours, mine or anyone else's ability to not make a mistake in the measurement.

Skip

Exactly, a slight over/under cropping would through out the ratio so I would always go with a standard one.

Yep and like I said you don't have to be off by very much; 2 or 3 pixels can make a big difference in the resulting calculation.

Sounds like rounding to the nearest standard aspect ratio is the way to go! 

The chart for rounded should be as follows:
1.33 / 1.37 /1.66 /1.75 /1.78 /1.85 /2.00 /2.20 /2.30 /2.35 /2.40 / 2.55 /2.76 / and latest last year 2.89  :1   

Have I missed any?    The bolded 1.78  is the set standard of course for 16x9 displays  the ratios for 1.66 - 1.75 - 1.85 is usually ananmorphic to 1.78 and software programs such as Powerdvd7 +  will give a small black bars to the left and right for below 1.78 //  and  small to medium black bars for 1.85 and higher .. Thicker black bars top and bottom for 2.20 to 2.55  and almost a third black bars for 2.76 and  2.89 ( Ben Hur - HTWWW ) which by itself is very close to 3.0 which is a  One third ''each'' top and bottom - black ; and one third in the middle for the movie itself ...