can i black out certain parts of a avi movie?

[warlock110]

i got some AVI that's fitting for a regular TV (like the old style that's NOT widescreen)... um i got a wide screen and that thing stretch out n look like crap.... so i was thinking if i can calculate and block out some parts on top/bottom (black out or remove completely) i can probably turn that thing into widescreen (not that it'll look good but probably better than being stretch)... at any rate... any software that can do that stuff to AVI files? i tried TMPGEnc and there's a function to do it, but the thing output into MPG... i just want it to be in it's orginal format. save the conversion time + lost of quality in the conversion process.
anything that can do that?

[guns1inger]

If your TV and player is set up correctly then the video should display in the correct aspect ratio, with vertical bars on each side. if it is stretching then you have a problem with your player or TV.

[warlock110]

oh, must be my crappy dvd players then... could also be the TV lol... but is there anyways to do this without fiddling with the tv or the DVD?

[guns1inger]

The problem is that if your player and TV are not set up correctly to begin with, you cannot guarantee that any changes you make will display correctly. If the player and TV are set up correctly first, then all other outcomes will be predictable.

Can you post a g-spot screenshot of one or two of the avi files so I know what you have ?

[jman98]

guns1inger - Despite what you might think, I have no problem with you, but I would like to (hopefully) politely point out that I don't think you understand what the original post is asking about. Perhaps things are different Down Under, but here in the USA, many many people with widescreen TVs just set them up to display everything as 16:9. This leads to stretching of non-widescreen material, hence the original post. I constantly adjust my widescreen TV to have the right aspect ratio for whatever I am watching, but sometimes I feel like I'm the only guy in this entire country who does that.

warlock110 - To answer your questions because I think I do understand exactly what you want to do - Yes, technically you can black out part of the video to do what you want,. to make it widescreen, but the problem is that when you do that, you will cut out part of the original picture. Here's a crude diagram to illustrate.

Your original film looks like this:
XXXXX
XXXXX
XXXXX
XXXXX
Yes, you can remove parts of the image to make it "widescreen" and end up with something like this:
XXXXX
XXXXX
Note how the "widescreen" film is missing part of the image. You can't turn standard aspect ratio video into widescreen without losing some of the picture. I don't think it's worth it.

You can't make any kind of change to the original AVI without quality loss and conversion time, so in those terms, no, you can't do what you want.

[guns1inger]

No offense taken.

I have a 4:3 TV with 16:9 switching, so my kit is also set up for 16:9 output, as if the Tv was a true 16:9 TV.

If I play back a widescreen avi, it displays as anamorphic widescreen. If I play back a 4:3 avi file, it displays as anamorphic 16:9 with vertical bars - no distortion. This is how it should function if it is set up correctly. I have configured several widescreen TV based set up in a similar manner and all have displayed without distortion (I also often get the urge to re-configure setups in department stores because they always seem to be distorted).

Yes, it doesn't fill the screen from side to side, but then it also doesn't require chopping half the image off, resizing and re-encoding.

[creakndale]

Oops.

[warlock110]

guns1inger - Despite what you might think, I have no problem with you, but I would like to (hopefully) politely point out that I don't think you understand what the original post is asking about. Perhaps things are different Down Under, but here in the USA, many many people with widescreen TVs just set them up to display everything as 16:9. This leads to stretching of non-widescreen material, hence the original post. I constantly adjust my widescreen TV to have the right aspect ratio for whatever I am watching, but sometimes I feel like I'm the only guy in this entire country who does that.

warlock110 - To answer your questions because I think I do understand exactly what you want to do - Yes, technically you can black out part of the video to do what you want,. to make it widescreen, but the problem is that when you do that, you will cut out part of the original picture. Here's a crude diagram to illustrate.

Your original film looks like this:
XXXXX
XXXXX
XXXXX
XXXXX
Yes, you can remove parts of the image to make it "widescreen" and end up with something like this:
XXXXX
XXXXX
Note how the "widescreen" film is missing part of the image. You can't turn standard aspect ratio video into widescreen without losing some of the picture. I don't think it's worth it.

You can't make any kind of change to the original AVI without quality loss and conversion time, so in those terms, no, you can't do what you want.

yes... that's what i want... um i understand some part will be cut... but is there software to do this? scew it, i wanna try it for shake of it... see how bad it turns out

[manono]

... many many people with widescreen TVs just set them up to display everything as 16:9. This leads to stretching of non-widescreen material

And many people have players that take 1.33:1 AVIs and stretch them to fill the widescreen TV set, no matter what steps you take to keep it from happening. DVD players with ESS chipsets are notorious for this. The answer isn't to reencode it for widescreen, cutting off the top and bottom of the picture, but to get a decent player. Some players have it happen over digital connections (DVI or HDMI), but not over component. If warlock110 is outputting over digital, he might try switching to component to see if he gets his pillarbars back.

I constantly adjust my widescreen TV to have the right aspect ratio for whatever I am watching, but sometimes I feel like I'm the only guy in this entire country who does that.

I don't have to adjust anything ever, to get the proper AR from either DVDs or AVIs. The Oppo I have, though, did stretch 1.33:1 AVIs and DVDs in its early days, until it was fixed with a firmware upgrade. I had to switch to component cables for awhile, for both AVIs and DVDs.

but is there software to do this? scew it, i wanna try it for shake of it... see how bad it turns out

Sure there is. AviSynth can easily do it. Then you frameserve into VDub(Mod) for the reencoding. Exactly how you do it - how you crop it - depends on the resolution of the AVI file. I suppose you can do it directly in VDub as well. You'll wind up with only 75% of what you started with, and a lot of heads will become only partly visible.