VideoHelp Forum
+ Reply to Thread
Results 1 to 16 of 16
Thread
  1. Member
    Join Date
    May 2002
    Location
    United States
    Search Comp PM
    I have a 16x9 clip that I need to *crop* to 4x3. I need to be able to select the area that I want to keep. What's the best proggie/easiest way to do this?

    Thanks!
    Quote Quote  
  2. Mod Neophyte Super Moderator redwudz's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2002
    Location
    USA
    Search Comp PM
    What format is the clip? No matter what editor program you use you will have to re-encode the clip. But you could try AVIDemux or even VirtualDub if it's a AVI type video.
    Quote Quote  
  3. Member
    Join Date
    May 2002
    Location
    United States
    Search Comp PM
    It happens to be an MPG (MPEG2).
    Quote Quote  
  4. AviUtl, AviDemux, AviSynth
    If your cropping coordinates are fixed throughout the clip, it should be easy.
    Stopping development until someone save me from poverty or get me out of Hong Kong...
    Twitter @MaverickTse
    Quote Quote  
  5. Member
    Join Date
    May 2002
    Location
    United States
    Search Comp PM
    Will those AVI utils work the same with MPG files (and output MPG)?

    Thanks.
    Quote Quote  
  6. If you remux (no quality loss) to MKV you can enable the container's cropping feature. Few players respect that though. I think you're limited to a single crop for the entire video though.
    Quote Quote  
  7. Member
    Join Date
    May 2002
    Location
    United States
    Search Comp PM
    No, I need the output to be MPG (MPEG2) - I don't want to re-encode to crop, then re-encode again to get the format. There HAVE to be MPG editing tools that will do this.
    Quote Quote  
  8. Member hech54's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2001
    Location
    Yank in Europe
    Search PM
    Originally Posted by DeathStalker77 View Post
    No, I need the output to be MPG (MPEG2) - I don't want to re-encode to crop, then re-encode again to get the format. There HAVE to be MPG editing tools that will do this.
    If you are cropping you ARE going to re-encode.....end of story.
    Quote Quote  
  9. Member
    Join Date
    May 2002
    Location
    United States
    Search Comp PM
    You are missing the point - not *2* re-encodes - one is (obviously) fine. Meaning I do not want to go from MPG > AVI/MKV/MP4/etc > and back to MPG.

    CROP MPG >Re-Encode to MPG

    Simple.
    Quote Quote  
  10. Banned
    Join Date
    Oct 2014
    Location
    Northern California
    Search PM
    Originally Posted by DeathStalker77 View Post
    I have a 16x9 clip that I need to *crop* to 4x3. I need to be able to select the area that I want to keep. What's the best proggie/easiest way to do this?
    You need to do what is professionally called 'pan and scan'.

    The way I like to it is to make an alpha layer with the 4:3 borders and reposition the 16:9 clip from scene to scene to fit in this virtual frame. Sometimes you have to make your own extra 'cuts' if the scene is too wide for 4:3 for instance if you have a dialogue between two people spread on the whole 16:9 frame. Of course you can go fancy and key frame during scenes as well.

    Then you simply cut the left and right areas and render.

    Any good NLE would be able to help you with this.

    Quote Quote  
  11. Member
    Join Date
    May 2002
    Location
    United States
    Search Comp PM
    No, nothing that complicated - just one section of the scene, no pan&scan, no movement, just a simple crop.

    I guess I can just use TMPGENC - I thought there might be something easier & quicker, but I guess not.

    Honestly, I don't understand why everyone here always tries to make a simple situation more complicated than it is or has to be (and that's NOT just on my posts, it's on MOST posts). It verges on "elitist".
    Quote Quote  
  12. Banned
    Join Date
    Oct 2014
    Location
    Northern California
    Search PM
    Originally Posted by DeathStalker77 View Post
    Honestly, I don't understand why everyone here always tries to make a simple situation more complicated than it is or has to be
    Well one person is creating a situation.

    The situation starts when someone has a desire to butcher an original video.



    Assuming it is not for artistic transformative reasons the question is who in his right mind would want to do that?

    Quote Quote  
  13. Member hech54's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2001
    Location
    Yank in Europe
    Search PM
    The easiest crop functions that I use is AviDemux. Since you understand that you will be re-encoding, AviDemux has several MPEG2 output options as well.
    VirtualDub also works well for me but I have the added benefit of being able to frameserve over to an old version of MainConcept.....VDub has no MPEG2 output.
    Quote Quote  
  14. Without further derailing on the topic, here is a short video demo on how would you do it in AviUtl.
    It can read MPEG2 directly and also encode to MPEG2 directly via FFmpeg.
    Pay attention to the "Command" field near the end of the video.

    Note that as others have said, re-encoding is NECESSARY. No tools can do cropping without a re-encode.
    Image Attached Files
    Stopping development until someone save me from poverty or get me out of Hong Kong...
    Twitter @MaverickTse
    Quote Quote  
  15. Member
    Join Date
    Sep 2012
    Location
    Australia
    Search Comp PM
    Proper use of Matroska headers CAN crop without re-encoding, unfortunately it requires whatever player your using to properly read and implement the crop elements, which very few players actually do.
    Quote Quote  
  16. Originally Posted by DeathStalker77 View Post
    Honestly, I don't understand why everyone here always tries to make a simple situation more complicated than it is or has to be
    Every video editor has the ability to crop.
    Quote Quote  
Visit our sponsor! Try DVDFab and backup Blu-rays!