Changing the aspect ratio of a video I have a video (.mpg) and currently it has the wrong aspect ratio (16:9).  I now want to change it to the correct aspect ratio (5:4).  How can I do this?

I know that on VLC player I can change the aspect ratio while the video is playing.  However, I am wondering if there is a permanent way of changing the aspect ratio, such that each time this video is played, it is in the correct aspect ratio?

Thank you.
It's easy to do this with FFmpeg which is run from the command line.

Method 1 – this will size the video appropriately and encode the result in H.264 MP4 format:

ffmpeg.exe -i inputfile.mpg -vcodec h264 -s 720x576 -aspect 5:4 outputfile.mp4


Method 2 – this will set a hint in the file as to the size it should be displayed at (with no recompressing or quality loss). VLC should respect this although not all players/editors will:

ffmpeg.exe -i inputfile.mpg -vcodec copy -aspect 5:4 -acodec copy outputfile.mpg


Method 3 – if you detect a decrease in the quality of the MPEG you can compress it at a high-bitrate MPEG-2:

ffmpeg.exe -i inputfile.mpg -vcodec mpeg2video -aspect 5:4 -acodec pcm_s16le -b 30000k outputfile.mpg


Good luck!