widening a video...can it be done?

[snafubaby]

I am always amazed at how many things we can do to videos, using different software. Here is something i am now wondering about. I capture VHS video from a vcr, using my Adstech video capture device. I am capturing at 720x480. The newly created videos have black bars on the sides of it. Are there any software programs out there than can widen the video, where there are not any black bars on the sides? Has video conversion gotten more advanced at all, where this is possible? Please advise..

[deadrats]

yes, there are tons of resizing filters and algorithms but you need to keep something in mind, if the info isn't there to begin with (and it isn't since you say there are black bars on the sides of your captured video) you can't add any new info to take the black bars place, what you would do is crop out the black bars and then a resize filter would do some slight of hand and add some pixels to upsample the video to the desired resolution.

[snafubaby]

Hi. Could you gimme a little tutorial so that i can perform such a task in Virtualdub? Or would simply cropping the video do the trick? Thanks.

[johns0]

It's not worth resizing the video to crop out the black bars,you will lose information from the top and bottom plus it reduced the quality with re-encoding,just use zoom on your tv if you want to fill the screen.

This subject has been discussed many times here.

[Wolfen]

Or since you have the VHS, why not use Virtualdub to capture the Video and you can crop the video before you capture it so you don't waste space capturing the black spots. ?

[snafubaby]

Thanks to all for your suggestions. I'll use virtualdub to capture, as Wolfen suggested.

[sanlyn]

Or since you have the VHS, why not use Virtualdub to capture the Video and you can crop the video before you capture it so you don't waste space capturing the black spots. ?

And don't forget that your captured frame size won't be valid for DVD or BD.