Matted to anamorphic with aviSynth/CCE?

[Sephiroth666]

I still think it's pretty stupid CCE can't read MPEG2 without a damn frameserver after all this time, especially considering what an expensive piece of software it is. Anyway, I'd like to crop Highlander Endgame (New Cut) and make it anamorphic. I can't stand watching it as is because they put all that odd text garbage in the black bars. It's interlaced 4:3 letterbox. I need to know the right combination of settings with avisynth and CCE, I suppose. I seem to remember trying this one other time and I couldn't get CCE to output the damn video without adding black bars.

[guns1inger]

I still think it's pretty stupid CCE can't read MPEG2 without a damn frameserver after all this time, especially considering what an expensive piece of software it is. Anyway, I'd like to crop Highlander Endgame (New Cut) and make it anamorphic. I can't stand watching it as is because they put all that odd text garbage in the black bars. It's interlaced 4:3 letterbox. I need to know the right combination of settings with avisynth and CCE, I suppose. I seem to remember trying this one other time and I couldn't get CCE to output the damn video without adding black bars.

Actually, it's not. CCE is an mpeg-2 encoder, and priced for the professional market where the source would rarely be mpeg-2.

The simplest way to do this is to use DVD Rebuilder. Even the free version can convert letterbox 4:3 to anamorphic. The option is under Options -> AVS Options -> Advanced (Expert) Options

[jagabo]

For NTSC cut 60 pixels off the top, 60 pixels off the bottom, resize what's left to 720x480 and encode as 16:9.

For PAL cut 72 pixles off the top, 72 pixels off the bottom and resize what's left to 720x576, and encode as 16:9.

Note that the amount you cut off the top and bottom don't have to be the same but the total should add up to 120 for NTSC, 144 for PAL.

For example:

MPEG2Source("file.d2v")
Crop(0, 72, -0, -72)
LanczosResize(720, 576)
ConvertToYUY2() #for CCE

Warning: interlaced video will require different handling.

[manono]

But if he's in the US, and if this is a movie on NTSC DVD, then most likely if it's interlaced it should be IVTC'd in the script and made progressive again. To be sure though, we'd need a small piece of the source VOB (or, preferably, the M2V) to examine. 10 seconds of a section with movement should do.

By the way, if it's this movie and this DVD:

http://www.amazon.com/Highlander-Endgame-Adrian-Paul/dp/B000056N8X

Then the real movie is on disc 1 and is 16:9 with no writing in the black.

Maybe you're playing the rough-cut alternate version on disc 2 (why?), with all the Avid garbage in the black. Since this is a 2.35:1 movie, just cropping away 60 rows of pixels from both the top and the bottom won't get rid of it all. You'll have to crop away all the black, add back enough so that the net effect is the removal of a total of 120 rows of pixels, and then resize and encode for 16:9. And almost certainly an IVTC is in order.