Cropping sound lines/Aspect ratio

[dreamking12]

Hello,
I have been getting great results capturing VHS with VDub, except for a couple of things. I suppose there is no way to avoid the sound lines on the bottom and sides when capturing, but is there any way to crop them out and still produce a full-screen DVD?
Also it seems no matter how much I crop the sides I get a lighter band of video maybe a couple of pixels wide on each side, is this normal? Any fixes?
Thanx!

[dreamking12]

Hi,
For anyone else wondering about this I found this complex giude:
At http://www.doom9.org search for
16 Pixel Aspect Ratio
16.1 An introduction to Pixel Aspect Ratio (par)

and this simpler one:
http://nickyguides.digital-digest.com/vdub-filters.htm

[dreamking12]

dang I am still having an issue with this, I'm uding the 'null transform filter in VDub, set to 24 on the sides and 8 on the bottom. Then using the resize filter I set it to 720 x 576 and have tried it with the 'resize and letterbox' box checked. The result is that the video is smaller than without the resize filter. Is this because I am changing the aspect ratio slightly? Can anyone help?
Thanx

[reboot]

If the end result is going to be a DVD, then don't resize anything in vdub, just crop.
Frameserve it to the encoder, and let the encoder letterbox it properly.
What encoder are you using?

[junkmalle]

If you're going to DVD you don't need to do anything. The noise will be in the overscan area, you won't see it on TV. If anything, cover (fill filter in VirtualDub) the area with black so it doesn't waste encoding bitrate.

[dreamking12]

Thank you, I had wondered if that's the case. I don't have the ability to try on a TV @ the moment so I could't tell.
Thanx again

[dreamking12]

Hey Reboot, I didn't see your post. You helped my out with the Kworld drivers. I think there was something wrong with that card, I finally gave up on it.
I'm using CCE to encode, I would be interested in how to have it letterbox, I don't see any settings for it. Do you think I need to do that Reboot or will the lines not be visable on TV like junkmalle says.

[hrlslcbr]

Use the blanking option of CCE to cover the lines with black colour.

[reboot]

The overscan area will hide the lines, but they eat up huge amounts of bitrate.
Better to crop, and let the encoder add the borders.

If anything, cover (fill filter in VirtualDub) the area with black so it doesn't waste encoding bitrate.

This is wrong. It wastes bitrate encoding black borders.

[hrlslcbr]

Like the 'blanking' option in CCE...

[junkmalle]

The overscan area will hide the lines, but they eat up huge amounts of bitrate.
Better to crop, and let the encoder add the borders.

If anything, cover (fill filter in VirtualDub) the area with black so it doesn't waste encoding bitrate.

This is wrong. It wastes bitrate encoding black borders.

What I meant was: encoding black borders wastes less bitrate than encoding a bunch of noise. Which is the same thing you are saying.

[dreamking12]

You all seem to be overlooking my point which makes me believe that there is sonething simple that I'm not understanding. I can crop out the sound lines fine, but I cant seem to make the DVD full screen.
I'm only interested in how the final DVD will look on TV so I created one with the sound lines intact in the hopes that the they wont show on TV. I'm not able to test it until tomorrow though.
junkmalle what am I missing and if you are using black-over how do yhou make it full screen?

[midnightsun]

hi there

If you're using the resize and letterbox option in the filters' settings, virtualdub keeps the original aspect ratio inserting as much black as needed to fill the window AND keep the aspect ratio untouched at the same time.
If you just crop and resize to fullscreen, unless you crop an amount of pixels so that the cropped and uncropped pictures have exactly the same aspect ratio, you're distorting -be it slightly or "not so slightly"- the picture proportions.

So to sum this up:
a) you crop and resize to fullscreen, but chances are you're (slightly) distorting the picture
b) you crop then resize and letterbox, you're maintaining the original aspect ratio but chances are you'll have some letterboxing

[SatStorm]

I don't crop on Virtualdub. I do this on TMPGenc later, while encoding. That way IMO is better, because the encoder don't bother to spent the slight pixel on the black areas.
Also that way, the picture automatic "Centers" (keep aspect ratio 2).
I don't wish to feet the -no cropped- picture on Screen, because resizing interlacing stuff is not wise. But if I have to do it, I use the standard "Keep aspect ratio" tab.

[midnightsun]

That would be ok, but I saw he had mentioned using cce so I didn't even bother giving advice on how to do it in tmpgenc

[junkmalle]

You all seem to be overlooking my point which makes me believe that there is sonething simple that I'm not understanding. I can crop out the sound lines fine, but I cant seem to make the DVD full screen.
I'm only interested in how the final DVD will look on TV so I created one with the sound lines intact in the hopes that the they wont show on TV. I'm not able to test it until tomorrow though.
junkmalle what am I missing and if you are using black-over how do yhou make it full screen?

The picture you capture on the computer is the same picture that your VCR sends to your TV -- both have the garbage at the sides and bottom. If you don't see the garbage when you watch the VHS tape on TV you won't see it when you watch the captured image on DVD.

This is because Televisions are designed to "overscan" the image. They paint the image larger than the visible part of the screen. This is done to hide defects at the edge of the image -- exactly what you are seeing in your caps. So you don't need to do anything with your captures: you won't see the black bars and noise at the edges of the picture when you watch on TV.

The suggestion I (and others) made is to you keep your original 720x576 frame size intact, just paint over the noisy edge(s) with black -- because solid black blocks take less bits to encode than a bunch of flashing noise. That will leave more bits for the rest of the picture. In truth, it's such a small area that it's not going to make a huge difference either way.

I am assuming here you are capturing at 720x576 and the VHS tape you are capturing is a full screen source, not a letterboxed source. Is that correct? Or maybe you're capturing at 352x576? That is a legal DVD frame size too. The DVD player will automatically stretch the image horizontally to make it fill the width of the TV screen.

[dreamking12]

To summarize: whether I crop the overscanning or not, the lines will not show up on the final DVD on TV, although I can save resources by using black-over in my encoder.
Thanx everyone!