Avi's with black borders to 16:9 (s)vcd

[jimA]

I occasionally run into a problem when converting DL'ed avi's to (s)vcd.

I have a 16:9 tv, and I want the movie to fill out the screen completely. Normally I do this by:
Loading the avi in tmpgenc 2.59.47.155
Loading a vcd-template
Setting - Video - Aspect Ratio - 16:9 625 line (PAL)
Setting - Advanced - Source Aspect Ratio 1:1 (VGA)
Setting - Advanced - Video arrange method - Full Screen (keep aspect ratio)

and thats it.

But some movies (apparantly) have black borders in the avi. As an example: Lionking II, it has big black borders top and bottom, approximately the same size. Virtualdub says in File Information:
frame size = 480*576, 25.000 fps

Example 2 is El Dorado, which also has black borders: Virtualdub says 352*288, 25.000 fps.

If I follow my usual method, I get black borders on the TV, and have to use the zoom-function.

I have tried various combinations of
Setting - Advanced - Video arrange method - Full Screen
and
Setting - Advanced - Clip frame

But I'm not sure If I am doing the right thing, and maybe I am clipping too much. 'Coz I can see from another avi (dinosaur), that it has thin black borders, and I assume that has something to do with overscan. So maybe the dude that made Dinosaur knew what he was doing. And when converting that movie, I should definately use Full Screen (keep aspect ratio) ?

/jim

[DJRumpy]

It sounds like they've simply encoded the letterboxing in the AVI. A very bad practice, but it happens. To fix it, you'll need to crop out the letterboxing first (you can use TMPGenc for that, as it has a cropping tool), and then use the same settings you always do for the encode.

Remove only the letterbox area, not the image area of your avi. Encode, and serve...