Hi!

While doing DVD to DVD-R backups (Smartripper/IfoEdit/TMPG/Nero) of my favorite films, I had this idea... I am looking for a way to shrink the top/bottom black bars in 1:2.35 aspect ratio movies, which are (obviously) not pan/scan. I am willing to sacrifice some of the picture on left an right to get to something like a 1:2 aspect ratio. Since most movies in that format are encoded anamorphic, I suppose this should not cost much quality(?). Is there an easy way to do this? I already tried doing it with the clip function of TMPGEnc, but which results in an obviously lower picture quality after reencoding. Another crazy idea was to just "declare" the movie pan/scan instead of letterboxed and let the DVD player clip an equal portion on both sides of the picture. This obviously doesn't work by just changing the flag in the IFO file. Still, would this be a practicable way to do it, if done right of course?

Thanks in advance for any ideas.

Robin