Adding black bars, so the MPEG looks "wide" on TV

[cdechery]

I have a source MPEG that is 640x352, and when recording it to VCD it will be converted to fullscreen, meaning I'll lose it's original format.

Is there a way I can add the black bars (or create a new MPEG with the original movie plus the bars) to the movie so it'll mantain the aspect ratio and be displayed as "wide" on my TV (which is not widescreen, but I prefer the bars then fullscreen).

the only problem is that the final MPEG should be 320x240, so I don't have a clue how to add a 640x352 movie PLUS the bars and have a good looking final 320x240 MPEG.

Thanks

[El Torro]

i think if you REconvert is with a prog called TMPGEnc and you select 16:9 Widescreen as aspect ratio you can get the pretty black bars...

(* convert the MPEG like you normally should to with an avi, but leave the filters away, cuz that only slows the proces)

[guitar_george_skank]

Load your MPEG into TMPEG as usual and pick all your settings except on the Video Tab choose 4:3 (NTSC) as your aspect ratio and on the advanced tab choose 1:1 VGA as your ratio. This way, when TMPEG resizes to 320x240 it will keep the correct aspect ratio of your original MPEG but add black borders where necessary to make it look right.

GGS.

[cdechery]

It didn't work.

I had already tried all kinds of setting in TMPEGEnc to do that... it always stretches to fullscreen, maybe because the source file is larger than 352x240.

I got it working though with VirtualDub resize filter, but I guess it's not perfect that way... right?

[Conquest10]

under advanced choose fullscreen (keep aspect ratio). that should add the pretty black bars.

[sterno]

One further note: a resolution of 640x352 was probably done for display on a computer monitor. Set the source aspect ratio to 1:1, along with "full screen (keep aspect ratio)" to have it look right on your TV.

[cdechery]

Ok... now it worked:

each reply complemented the other, and only with this last one it finally worked as expected. These are the settings:

[Video]
Size: 352x240
Aspect Ratio: 4:3 (NTSC)

[Advanced]
Source Aspect Ratio: 1:1 (VGA)
Video Arrange Method: Fullscreen (keep aspect ratio)

but I found this method to be VEEEEEEEEEEERY slower than VirtualDub's resize filter. It would take 8hs to encode with TMPEGEnc rezing it, and only 2:30hs with VIrtualDub as the Frameserver.

weird!

[guitar_george_skank]

Oops... Forgot to mention about the Keep Aspect Ratio. Thanks COnquest10 & sterno.

Interesting point about TMPEG taking longer when IT resizes. Why not use Avisynth, it should be even quicker than virtualdub.

GGS.