how to letterbox fullscreen videos

[Idofex]

ok, so i have a video (a personal home video of coarse ) and its about a 700 meg avi/divx file in fullscreen format. im coverting it to mpeg-2 via TMPGEnc and then burning it to SVCD. is there any way somewhere in that process to shrink the vertical size so it comes out letterbox or just something to make it come out widescreen. I HATE FULLSCREEN. thanx.
Idofex

[Conquest10]

you can just crop the top and bottom off.

[FulciLives]

Wait !!!

The whole point of widescreen/letterbox is that the movie is being shown at the original aspect ratio and if the ratio is more than 1.33:1 then the only way to do that properly is to make it widescreen/letterboxed.

But if your home video was shot on a video camera then you can't really make it widescreen/letterbox because almost all camcorders have an aspect ratio of 4:3

Now some camcorders can record in a 16x9 enhanced widescreen (ala the DVD format) that will be widescreen/letterbox on a normal 4:3 tv

Is THAT what you are talking about?

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[Idofex]

no no no, i hate the way fullscreen looks, i just want to flaten out the video so it looks like it is wide screen, even if its doesnt show any more picture than fullscreen would. its like take a regulat picture and scale it vertically a little, how would you do that to the video? thnx
Ido

[FulciLives]

no no no, i hate the way fullscreen looks, i just want to flaten out the video so it looks like it is wide screen, even if its doesnt show any more picture than fullscreen would. its like take a regulat picture and scale it vertically a little, how would you do that to the video? thnx
Ido

Can't be done without either distorting the aspect ratio (making everyone look too short and fat) or by chopping off the top and bottom which will retain the aspect ratio but, depending on how it was framed when originally shot on the cam, will cut off possibly vital visual information.

Completely INSANE idea unless you somehow framed BEFORE HAND (i.e., when videotaping) with the idea of doing this later (chopping off the top and bottom).

The best way to do this is to use a camcorder (some DV cams have this option) where you can shoot in 16x9 widescreen. When converting the DV to MPEG2 you can then resize it to a 4:3 aspect ratio so it will be widescreen. You could also leave it at 16x9 so it will be like a 16x9 DVD ... fill a widescreen TV but the player will letterbox it on a normal 4:3 TV but you have to use an authoring software package that supports 16:9 and few do that although if your authoring package can make a VIDEO_TS folder of files you can just do it full screen (stretched 16x9) then change the 4:3 flag in the IFO to 16x9 so it will play back properly in a DVD player. I think this can be done using IFOEdit.

If your camcorder doesn't have a 16x9 mode then you can try this trick:

Assuming your camcorder has a flip out LCD screen use it to record something (using the video input) that is widescreen. Not all DVD discs have copy protection so find a widescreen DVD that is copy protection free and copy it to a DVD tape. Then play it back on your flip out LCD screen. Get black electrical tape and cover the top and bottom of the screen to match the black ... now when you are shooting LIVE footage through the lenz make sure you use the LCD screen as your guide for framing. Latter, in TMPGEnc for instance, you can do the CLIP command to cut off the top and bottom ... for a 16x9 aspect ratio you would clip about 64 pixels from the top and 64 pixels on the bottom. I'm not sure how much exactly to chop off for 1.85:1 or 2.35:1 but you could do some tests using DVD clips that are at a widescreen ratio you like.

For instance find a widescreen DVD movie that has an aspect ratio that you like (1.66:1 or 1.78:1 (16x9) or 1.85:1 or 2.35:1 etc.) and bring that into TMPGEnc and figure out how much you need to clip the top and bottom to match the ratio. Then maybe even copy THAT movie clip to your camcorder and mask the LCD screen to match.

As I said I know 1.78:1 (which is 16x9) is about 720x352 (out of a height of 480 ... NTSC I am talking) and I think 2.35:1 is about 720x272 but I'm not so sure about the very common 1.85:1 ratio.

I'd stick with 1.78:1 (16x9) as this will give you enough black above and below the image to give a pleasing widescreen image while still giving you a "maximum" area to shoot in ... unless you actually are trying to make a mini-movie then by all means try other ratios such as 2.35:1

But unless you mask your LCD screen accordingly (using it as a guide while you are videotaping) then the footage you shoot will look like crap when you letterbox it.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

All resolution values given above are assuming you are using NTSC which for DVD has a size of 720x480 at the "full screen" 4:3 (1.33:1) aspect ratio. Please note that PAL is 720x576 instead of 720x480

[energy80s]

If you just want to "hard matte" a 4:3 source with TMPGenc, go to the "cropping" feature in TMPG and crop off the top and bottom 72 lines (from a PAL source, for NTSC this will be less) and tick the "add top and bottom borders" boxes. This will give you a letterboxed image in a 4:3 frame, but as has been said above, it could end up cutting off vital parts of the image (like peoples heads!!) so you really have to compose your shots beforehand with the aim of ARC'ing the picture in post production.

[geek rock]

if you have a widescreen TV you could just use the 16:9 zoom mode..