adding letterbox black bars to mpeg2?

[erzimeriah]

I have been reencoding some mpeg files that are 720x404, and i know that most letterbox images run 720x480. how would I ad the black bars to make the 720x404 be 720x480?

[tgpo]

It could be done with Adobe After Effects, but there may be an easier way.

[Xanathus]

Here's a trick I learned for making letterbox in Quicktime with Cleaner6. Not sure if it would work for files that are already MPEG, though.

1) Create a black image, the size of your final frame-size (720x480), and save it as a PICT file.

2) Open the image in MoviePlayer, and export it as a Quicktime Movie.

3) Open your new movie, and duplicate the existing video until it is the right playing time (Copy & Paste, actually).

4) Open the source video, Select All, then Copy.

5) Select the Black movie, and "Add" (with the option key held down) the copied selection onto it.

6) Save As... under a new name; it doesn't need to be self-contained.

7) Re-encode that file with your favorite encoder.

I haven't tried this with MPEG files... Just QT native files. Roxio Toast has this letterbox thing all figured out, why can't Discreet's Cleaner do it so easily?

You may need to adjust the height of the black image size to compensate for pixel/screen aspect-ratio.

JCjr