how to change aspect ratio of video?

[curt1sw]

Hello all,

Say I have a video that I want to use as a video background on my desktop. I have a widescreen monitor, so if I stretch the video the video looks weird. how can I change the video aspect ratio so that it runs smoothly in widescreen mode?

I imagine I need to produce an entire new video, but I am not sure how to calculate the aspect ration so it fits my widescreen monitor just right and can I use mencoder or something similiar to do it?

I also would like to avoid black bars at the top and bottom of the video.

Thanks!
Curt

[guns1inger]

You have to crop the video. The actual aspect ratio of most widescreen monitors is 16:10. Take the width, divide it by 16, then multiple this by 10. Crop your video to that height and re-encode. You can use virtualdub to do all of it, to avisynth to crop and anything else to encode.

Be aware that if the source video was not shot with widescreen in mind, you may find that doing a straight crop chops off heads etc. Something you will just have to live with if you want a fast solution.

[curt1sw]

So you take the width of the video and then divide that by 16 and multiply it by 10?

I usually use mencoder or SUPER. Do you know how to do this with those programs?

I am really new to all of this, so an in-depth explanation would be great!

Thanks!