Hard Coded Letterboxing

[danielnitschke]

Hello,

I've made a three minute movie in Windows Movie Maker. All the clips/images are iPhone 4S Portrait orientation.
I set the Aspect Ratio to 4:3, and rendered.

My question is, how do I remove the black bars at the side (pillarbox) so this will play on an iPhone in standard ratio without the pillars at the sides. I won't recreate the project in another software, so if this isn't possible, is there a software out there that will remove the pillars at the sides and resize it so it fits in a standard iPhone screen, I understand it will be a weird resolution?

I tried using a QuickTime mask tool which seemed to work well, right up until I exported it then it stretched the video out weirdly.

Help?

[manono]

My question is, how do I remove the black bars at the side (pillarbox) so this will play on an iPhone in standard ratio without the pillars at the sides.

By cropping away the black and then cutting off the top and bottom until it's the ratio of the iPhone player.

...is there a software out there that will remove the pillars at the sides...

You're sure it has pillars on the sides, and that they weren't added by the player? When you check the resolution in something like MediaInfo, does it show the video to be a 1.33:1 ratio or a 1.78:1 ratio ('square' or 'widescreen')? What is the resolution?

...and resize it so it fits in a standard iPhone screen

Yes, lots, but I, personally, don't change the aspect ratio of a video to fit the player screen. I prefer them in their original aspect ratio.

[danielnitschke]

My question is, how do I remove the black bars at the side (pillarbox) so this will play on an iPhone in standard ratio without the pillars at the sides.

By cropping away the black and then cutting off the top and bottom until it's the ratio of the iPhone player.

...is there a software out there that will remove the pillars at the sides...

You're sure it has pillars on the sides, and that they weren't added by the player? When you check the resolution in something like MediaInfo, does it show the video to be a 1.33:1 ratio or a 1.78:1 ratio ('square' or 'widescreen')? What is the resolution?

...and resize it so it fits in a standard iPhone screen

Yes, lots, but I, personally, don't change the aspect ratio of a video to fit the player screen. I prefer them in their original aspect ratio.

Hey there,

Thanks for your reply.
I absolutely need to change the ratio, because when played on an iPhone the video appears as a small rectangular box in the middle instead of filling the whole screen like it would if the pillars weren't there.

Opened in Media info, shows 1440x1080 *(4:3), these are the settings I chose in WMM. Like I say, I'm convinced WMM has hard coded the pillars in, and this is where my problem is. I just want it so it's all video and no boxing anywhere. This is also proven by the thumbnails. The original iPhone files have a portrait rectangle with no black, and the movie has black at the sides when shown in windows explorer.

Can you please suggest a software that can do this? I haven't been able to find one so far.

[poisondeathray]

You can crop them +/- resize if you want

e.g. avidemux, virtualdub, aviutl

[manono]

You can't start over rather than trying to fix what you broke?

So, the pillar bars are being added by the player since your screen is widescreen? But the letterboxing was encoded above and below the video? And if you could get the video without any black bars at all then that's what you want, right? Begin again and make it without any black bars at all. What is the source resolution? And maybe use something besides WMM, perhaps one of pdr's suggestions.