Xvid Black Side Bars

[chainz]

Hi Guys

When I encode to Xvid I get black bars on the left and right hand sides of the video. I cant find out how to fix that. When I encode to anything else it's fine. Anyone know whats up with that ?

[guns1inger]

What is the resolution ?
What is the source ?
How do you convert ?
What tools ?
What process ?

Sorry for the questions, but my crystal ball is in the shop for tune.

[chainz]

720 x 576
It came straight from my minidv cam. Use Virtualdub to encode. Thats it really. And it gives me the bars on the output video. I still want the video that size.

[edDV]

720 x 576
It came straight from my minidv cam.

How wide are the side bars ?
Are you encoding as 4x3 or 16x9 ?

Ref: http://www.mir.com/DMG/aspect.html#dvframesizes

[chainz]

I dunno what the pixel size of the bars are, I would say they are about 2cm or so accross on each side. Encoding to 4:3.

[guns1inger]

What are you encoding to ?
Do you resize ?

[chainz]

No I dont want to resize. Encoding to Xvid so I can backup my dv video onto dvd discs and stuff.

Oh and if this matters, It's when I try to view it fullscreen I see the bars. It doesnt expand to the whole screen like it should.

[manono]

You sure the bars were added when reencoding, and not by the player? To test, please open the XviD in Virtual Dub, Virtual Dub Mod, or NanDub. Scroll around. If you don't see those black bars, then they weren't encoded onto the video.

Not really sure why you have to reencode to XviD on the way to making a DVD of it, but that's another issue.

[jtoolman2000]

Not really sure why you have to reencode to XviD on the way to making a DVD of it, but that's another issue.

Bingo,, exactly my thought!

MiniDV to crappy Xvid on a DVD, now that makes huge sense!

[chainz]

I cant fit a 13 gig video on a dvd can I.

[Abond]

I cant fit a 13 gig video on a dvd can I.

No,really. But you can encode directly to DVD.

[jagabo]

Oh and if this matters, It's when I try to view it fullscreen I see the bars. It doesnt expand to the whole screen like it should.

There's your problem. PAL DV has pixels that are slightly wider than they are tall. Most players assume Xvid files use square pixels. So a 720x576 Xvid AVI doesn't fill the width of a 4:3 display.

Xvid has a display aspect ratio setting. You can set that to 4:3. If your player respects that setting it will display the video without the pillar bars. I think you'll find that most stand alone players don't honor that setting though.

For files you've already encoded you can use MPEG4Modifier to change the aspect ratio.

If the DV footage is irreplaceable I'd split it into ~4GB segments with VirtualDubMod (in Direct Stream Copy mode) for backup to DVD. That will avoid degrading the video.

[greymalkin]

with the newer hd formats coming around the corner you may want to seriously consider holding on to the raw avi data.

But even a properly encoded DVD will look be better than a divx file (9800kbps CBR). and you will get 1hr per single layer dvd.