Capture from VCR - Crop Help

[Jasems]

So I capture a video from my VCR using a Pinnacle capture device. Everything regarding that works well.

After the capture there are some lines, or garbage if you will, at the very bottom of the capture. All I want to be able to do is to crop off the very bottom of the video. I can't find anything that will do this without converting the format to avi, divx, or whatever.

Tried virtual dub, but it wants to compress it and change it to an avi, which I did using a guide here anyway, but the quality comes out cruddy.

This is a simple .mpg file about 350meg large that I want to bring in to a pragram and crop off the bottom. Anyone know something out there that could do this without messing up the quality of the video and not change the format? Thanks

Jasems

[redwudz]

If they are just a few lines and you plan to watch the video on a TV, they are probably in the 'overscan' area and won't be seen on the TV.

[Jasems]

Well that is correct they don't show up on the TV, but this is also sent to people with PC's unfortunately, and it does seem to show up on those, unfortunately again, hehe. Does anyone know anything out there that I can use to crop an mpg and save it as the same format just without the bottom crud on there caused from the VCR capture?

Thanks

Jasems

[anubis13]

try mainconcept mpeg encoder. it has a crop feature. or try the vegas video demo. both of these will let you crop but technically they recompress the video into a new .mpg file. if you select the same bit rate as the original you should see little to no quality difference.

[FulciLives]

There is no way to crop the video unless you re-encode. You can re-encode to any format you want but of course you will loose quality.

This is one of many reason why direct capture to MPEG is a bad idea.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[Jasems]

Oh, so if I can capture as an AVI that would be much easier to work with then? Wish my capture software could just capture it with the bottom cut off a little :/

Jasems[/quote]

[FulciLives]

Oh, so if I can capture as an AVI that would be much easier to work with then?

BINGO

[lechon]

i have the same problem.. the noise at the bottom of captured VHS video.

i capture the video (in avi) and throw it in Adobe Premiere (where i edit the video). instead of trying to remove it, i simply try to cover it by adding black boxes over it. i also insert a black box on top for symmetry. so essentially its like the "widescreen" effect, except the black boxes are extremely thin (thin enough to cover those annoying lines at the bottom).

i do this because:
-cropping the entire video leads to picture quality-loss (often unnoticeble grant u, but enough to drive u crazy).
-gives it a cleaner appearance and symmetrical appearance.