Two Questions (HDTV Conversion and video borders)

[Tony G]

Didn't know what forum to post these in so I thought I'd just put them here.

First Question:
I've been wanting to convert this HDTV file to AVI. I usually use Auto Gordian Knot (I'm just way too overwhelmed by Gordian Knot) and it always works. This file is different. It's not just a straight out .ts file, it's a "MPEG2-TS" file. So its got the .ts extension, but the video is "apparently" encoded in MPEG2 and the audio is in AAC. It's true as the video is a lot crisper than in an MPEG2 conversion. But when I try to convert it in Auto Gordian Knot it says that aac audio is not supported. Is there any way to get it to support it, or another program that supports AAC audio in the conversion process?

Second Question:
How do I get rid of black borders in videos already encoded in AVI?

Thanks.

[guns1inger]

First question : you might try running it through hdtvtompeg2, then trying autoGK.

Second question : cropping. You can use Virtualdub or avisynth to crop off the bars, however you will have to re-encode the results, so only remove the bars if you have something to gain by it.

[edDV]

A true 16:9 HDTV file won't have excessive letterbox borders, just the difference between 16:1 and 2.35:1 aspect ratio. If you plan to play it back to a 16:9 HDTV, you need the borders.