Passive metadata question (aspect ratio) at DVinfo.net

Ben Turley · March 31st, 2011, 10:32 AM

I've been digitizing a bunch of widescreen SD videos to Cineform for archiving and have been struck again by the inability to pass on an anomorphic flag to CS5, Windows Media Player, MPC or Quicktime (on Windows).

I understand from earlier threads and further reading that the AVI format does not include a standard metadata feature for aspect ratio and that that information is supposed to be incorporated into the video stream itself, but I noticed that in the 'Cineform' section of the passive metadata tab in FirstLight that there is a 'Pixel Aspect Ratio' (PAR) setting. I noticed that the value - 10001 - is the same as for square pixelled EX3 and 5D material that I have.

Firstlight allows matting in the active metadata but is there any way to set the correct PAR value in the passive metadata or could this become another option available under the active metadata? It would be great not to have to manually set ratios in each bit of software I play back on, and to have correctly-shaped thumbnails in Explorer and Bridge ;)

March 31st, 2011, 10:32 AM	#1
Ben Turley New Boot Join Date: Jul 2010 Location: London, UK Posts: 10	Passive metadata question (aspect ratio) I've been digitizing a bunch of widescreen SD videos to Cineform for archiving and have been struck again by the inability to pass on an anomorphic flag to CS5, Windows Media Player, MPC or Quicktime (on Windows). I understand from earlier threads and further reading that the AVI format does not include a standard metadata feature for aspect ratio and that that information is supposed to be incorporated into the video stream itself, but I noticed that in the 'Cineform' section of the passive metadata tab in FirstLight that there is a 'Pixel Aspect Ratio' (PAR) setting. I noticed that the value - 10001 - is the same as for square pixelled EX3 and 5D material that I have. Firstlight allows matting in the active metadata but is there any way to set the correct PAR value in the passive metadata or could this become another option available under the active metadata? It would be great not to have to manually set ratios in each bit of software I play back on, and to have correctly-shaped thumbnails in Explorer and Bridge ;)