DVD Cropping 2.35:1 down to 2:1

[heretic754]

Hi, what programs can you suggest I use for cropping a DVD movie with a ratio of 2.35:1 down to approximately 2:1 with? I am hoping the the resulting video will still be in DVD quality.

[SingSing]

The easier way to watch a 2.35:1 Movie onTV is to use the zoom feature on your DVD player. The better DVD player like JVC, and Samsung have zoom 1.5x, that show 2.35:1 Movie with just couple of thin black bars.

[guns1inger]

Can I ask why you want to crop it to such an odd resolution ?

[heretic754]

There's nothing odd about it. Francis Ford Coppola cropped Apocalypse Now Redux to 2:1 for its DVD release. It's a good compromise between viewing a movie so wide on a screen so small (i.e. many times smaller than a movie theater screen). I would like to do the same with a DVD I own.

So, there aren't any programs that can do this?

[guns1inger]

Not automatically. The basic process would involve

1. Demuxing the video from the DVD
2. Cropping and then resizing the video. This will be a straight centre crop, and not a re-framing of the image within the new frame. The image then needs to be resized to spec resolution
3. Re-encode the video
4. Re-muxing the video back into the DVD

Step 1 can be done with rejig or similar
Step 2 is best done with avisynth, and then frameserved to step 3
Step 3 whatever encoder you have
Step 4 is the more difficult part - look at guides for IFOEdit, or PGCEdit to find out how to prep and remux material. Not for the feint of heart