Thanks so much for your interest, Hendrik. I have done more testing and found that the problem is actually the dimensions of the file. Perhaps with certain dimensions, MC doesn't know how to correctly determine the aspect ratio? This is what the "Modulus" setting in Handbrake is about: it ensures that the dimensions of the file are cleanly divisible by 2 or 4 or 8, etc. And depending on what value you select, it actually resizes/stretches the dimensions of the file to cleanly fit one of those divisors. It seems MC might need a Modulus of 4 (not 2) in order to work properly in some odd cases? Such as mine...
My file has dimensions of 706x572.
If I select Modulus 4 for this file, 706
does not divide cleanly into 4, so Handbrake resizes it to width of 704. And then MC
can play it properly.
But if I select Modulus 2 for this file in Handbrake, 706
does divide cleanly into 2, so the original dimensions are retained. But then MC
can't play it properly.
Here are sample files with both dimensions, along with screen grabs from both Handbrake and MC:
http://www.mhat.com/temp/yabb_122225.zip