getting rid of black borders from ripped widescreen movies?

[curt1sw]

Hello all,

I recently have been buying some nature scene DVDs and I was ripping them from DVD with MagicDVDRipper to SVCD. When I rip it though, the widescreen has a black border on top and on the bottom. Is there any way to remove this border with something like super or mencoder?

Thanks!
curt1s

[mats.hogberg]

SVCD supports the same DAR as DVD; 4:3 and 16:9, so your should be able to have it display exactly the same as the DVD. But perhaps MagicDVDRipper always letterboxes to a 4:3 DAR?

/Mats

[curt1sw]

Hello,

Yeah it looks like MagicDVDRipper only supports 4:3.. I dont see any option anywhere to change that and here is my media info:

General #0
Complete name : D:\snow day.mpg
Format : MPEG-2 Program
Format/Family : MPEG-2
File size : 1.30 GiB
PlayTime : 1h 6mn
Bit rate : 2789 Kbps

Video #0
Codec : MPEG-2 Video
Codec profile : Main@Main
Codec settings/Matri : Custom
PlayTime : 1h 6mn
Bit rate : 2376 Kbps
Bit rate mode : CBR
Width : 480 pixels
Height : 480 pixels
Aspect ratio : 4/3
Frame rate : 29.970 fps
Standard : NTSC
Chroma : 4:2:0
Interlacement : Interlaced
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.344

Audio #0
Codec : MPEG-1 Audio layer 2
PlayTime : 1h 6mn
Bit rate : 224 Kbps
Bit rate mode : CBR
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Sampling rate : 44 KHz
Resolution : 16 bits
Writing library : Gogo (after 3.0)


With that in mind.. can you recommend a good easy-to-use DVD ripping program that will rip at 16:9?

Thanks!

[curt1sw]

by the way.. there is a setting to change resolution from 480x480 which is default for SVCD. I can chnage those values to get it to be 16:9 ?

Thanks

[aedipuss]

svcd is 480x480 if ntsc. only. there is no wide resolution. that's why there are black borders in the screen. can't be changed.

[mats.hogberg]

480x480 is the resolution for NTSC SVCD just like 720x480 is (one of) the resolution for NTSC DVD. Both can be displayed at 4:3 or 16:9. It's just a matter of setting the flag in the mpg (with for instance DVDPatcher).

/Mats

[wulf109]

SVCD does not support 16:9 and there are no DVD players that will display SVCD in 16:9,SVCD,like VCD is a 4:3 only format. You can encode with the black bars but there diplayed within 4:3 frame.

[manono]

Not exactly true. SVCD does support 16:9, but as far as I know, most players still can't play it correctly (although my Oppo does):

SVCD supports 16:9 (anamorphic wide screen) image aspect ratio.

http://lipas.uwasa.fi/~f76998/video/svcd/overview/#technical_features

Or check this chart (note that you're correct in saying VCD is 4:3 only):

http://www.mir.com/DMG/aspect.html#reftable

[aedipuss]

the mpeg stream may support 16:9 but producing an SVCD one and displaying it is about as likely as the audio having 5.1 surround.

even the chart you quote lists svcd 16:9 as 480x480, which means the black bars HAVE to be hard encoded in the video. if some bizarre player removes the bars, it is done in the software, not the hardware.

[manono]

the mpeg stream may support 16:9 but producing an SVCD one and displaying it is about as likely as the audio having 5.1 surround.

I've made 'em, and I've played 'em. What's the big deal? I haven't tried with DD 5.1 audio though, just regular old MP2.

even the chart you quote lists svcd 16:9 as 480x480, which means the black bars HAVE to be hard encoded in the video. if some bizarre player removes the bars, it is done in the software, not the hardware.

Wrong again. A 4:3 SVCD gets resized from 480x480 to 640x480 upon playback, and a 16:9 SVCD get resized from 480x480 to ~854x480 upon playback. If the original source DVD is 1.78:1 or 1.85:1, then no or very little black bars are required to keep the AR. I did it as an experiment a couple of times several years ago, just to see if I could, and I could. I didn't make it a common practice (back during my short SVCD period) because a 16:9 SVCD requires a higher bitrate for the same quality, as compared with a 4:3 SVCD with the black bars.

[aedipuss]

i made hundreds of ws svcds also. they all had black bars hard encoded, i.e 16:9 encoded as 4:3. no big deal at all. there is no other spec but 480x480 for ntsc svcd so the bars have to be there or it is 4/3 fullscreen. 5.1 audio is possible and i made a few but nothing imported to the u.s.a. plays it as 5.1 as it was a phillips european thing for a short while.

[manono]

Read my edit of my earlier post.

[mats.hogberg]

svcd 16:9 as 480x480, which means the black bars HAVE to be hard encoded

Following that line of reasoning, even a 4:3 SVCD video should have black borders (480x480=1:1 AR). And PAL (480x576) should have even more.
SVCD (as it's mpg2) can be both 4:3 and 16:9, just like DVD.
5.1 SVCD is not a SVCD, as SVCD states mp2 audio, and AFAIK, there's no way to encode 5.1 mp2 audio.

/Mats