www.mplayerhq.hu/DOCS/HTML/en/aspect.html DVDs and SVCDs (i.e. MPEG-1/2) files contain an aspect ratio value, which describes how the player should scale the video stream, so humans will not have egg heads (ex.: 480x480 + 4:3 = 640x480). However when encoding to AVI (DivX) files, you have be aware that AVI headers do not store this value. Rescaling the movie is disgusting and time consuming, there has to be a better way!
There is
MPEG-4 has an unique feature: the video stream can contain its needed aspect ratio. Yes, just like MPEG-1/2 (DVD, SVCD) and H.263 files. Regretfully, there are no video players outside which support this attribute of MPEG-4, except MPlayer.
This feature can be used only with libavcodec's mpeg4 codec. Keep in mind: although MPlayer will correctly play the created file, other players will use the wrong aspect ratio.
