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  1. This may sound like a stupid question to some, but bear with me as I explain why I think it SHOULD be possible to do.

    I'm looking for a possible way (if it exists) to take my ripped blu-ray movies, crop out the black bars, and save it as-is without re-encoding, and degrading the video. The reason why I think this should be possible is because it's like taking each frame one by one and saving it as an image, cropping it to specification, and then re-assembling the images one by one into a video stream. Is this possible at all? And if not, why?

  2. Originally Posted by agent154 View Post
    it's like taking each frame one by one and saving it as an image, cropping it to specification, and then re-assembling the images one by one into a video stream.
    Basically, you just described video (re-)encoding.

  3. Well, my point is, I don't want to change the bitrate of the video. Conventionally, by re-encoding a bluray, you introduce imperfections into the video since you're re-compressing it using different algorithms compared to what it was done in the first place. I want to keep the video part perfect while only trimming off a part of it. I could use a CQ level of 0 in handbrake for "lossless", but that obviously is not quite the same. It's like converting an mp3 to a wav file. There's a lot of unnecessary data padded to it.

  4. I'm a Super Moderator johns0's Avatar
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    Just use handbrake to re-encode at the same bitrate as the original blu-ray,it will be just as good as the original with some inherent loss you cant see.

    If you do a lossless encode the file will be much bigger than the original.In other words theres no way you can crop without encoding.
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  5. Member edDV's Avatar
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    Just wondering why you would lower quality with a re-encode just to get rid of the letterbox bars. Is your display other than 16:9?
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    I almost replied right when this was posted.......
    But i held my tongue.....

    Then i read the OP's second post.....

    and Satan got the best of me.....

    OY VEY!!!!!

    Not a clue....

    And i won't even go into this ridiculous comment,
    It's like converting an mp3 to a wav file
    LOL!!

  7. Originally Posted by agent154 View Post
    The reason why I think this should be possible is because it's like taking each frame one by one and saving it as an image, cropping it to specification, and then re-assembling the images one by one into a video stream. Is this possible at all? And if not, why?
    No, it's not possible. To crop part of the frame each frame has to be decompressed. Then the frame is cropped. If you don't recompress the video you'll have a gigantic file, several hundred GB per hour of video. So you have to recompress. Even if you compress with the same bitrate as the source and the best encoder available you will get a little loss of quality.

    Originally Posted by agent154 View Post
    There's a lot of unnecessary data padded to it.
    No. Black borders compress down to nearly nothing.

    Originally Posted by agent154 View Post
    It's like converting an mp3 to a wav file.
    And the WAV file will be much larger than the MP3 file.

  8. MKV has a crop flag as part of it's specification. In theory, you can mux video with black bars into an MKV, set a crop value, and the player will crop that amount on playback. In practice though, it's not very well supported by software players and completely unsupported by hardware players (as far as I know).

    Last time I tried it, I think MPC-HC made a mess of the aspect ratio if you added cropping to the side, while it ignored top and bottom crop values. I "think" VLC handled the top and bottom crop values okay. Don't quote me on any of that though..... I haven't played with cropping that way in quite a while.

    You can add crop values to MKV files by running MKVMergeGUI and opening the header editor from the file menu, then use it to open an MKV. One question which comes to mind though, is why do you actually want to crop the black bars if you're not going to re-encode? Unless the edges of the video aren't nice and sharp (which they mostly are on Bluray) I'm not sure I quite see the point. Even if you could "remove" them without re-encoding as you describe, it probably wouldn't reduce the file size much at all.

  9. Originally Posted by Noahtuck View Post
    I almost replied right when this was posted.......
    But i held my tongue.....

    Then i read the OP's second post.....

    and Satan got the best of me.....

    OY VEY!!!!!

    Not a clue....

    And i won't even go into this ridiculous comment,
    It's like converting an mp3 to a wav file
    LOL!!
    So how about being useful and explaining to people who might now know as much as you do why that's ridiculous?

    Does everyone else get that the OP understood the ridiculous prospect of converting an MP3 to a WAV file, and was using it to illustrate his point? I don't care if this is an older post.

  10. I think all but one poster "got it". Comparing coverting compressed video to a lossless format with converting an MP3 to wave.... well in context it seemed a pretty sound analogy to me.

  11. Member FulciLives's Avatar
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    The funny thing to me is that people are usually trying to do the opposite, i.e., add the black back to a cropped video. This is needed for making a AVCHD disc (must be exactly 1080p or exactly 720p).
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  12. Originally Posted by hello_hello View Post
    I think all but one poster "got it". Comparing coverting compressed video to a lossless format with converting an MP3 to wave.... well in context it seemed a pretty sound analogy to me.
    A sound analogy eh? Are puns automatic or do you just try to sneak them by us?
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  13. Check this out, here is also good tut http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Szs94BYCgvI

  14. I'm a MEGA Super Moderator Baldrick's Avatar
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    Originally Posted by NightFoxlas View Post
    Check this out, here is also good tut http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Szs94BYCgvI
    Without reencoding? Nope. So I don't know why you post here....
    Last edited by Baldrick; 21st Nov 2012 at 11:11.

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    Originally Posted by FulciLives View Post
    The funny thing to me is that people are usually trying to do the opposite, i.e., add the black back to a cropped video. This is needed for making a AVCHD disc (must be exactly 1080p or exactly 720p).
    While we do get the occasional post from someone wanting to add black bars because they know enough about video to understand why they need to do it, we are constantly getting posts like the original one in this thread from people who believe that their very soul is going to be taken away from them if they even once in their life see a black bar on any video clip. This is why the vast majority of Americans watch EVERYTHING in 16:9 on their HDTVs without any complaint. God forbid that anyone ever have to watch something in its original aspect ratio.

  16. Member Cornucopia's Avatar
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    The only valid reason I could see for losing black bars is if someone previously had added them and then put in the wrong aspect ratio/resolution in encoding, so the current player is inadvertantly adding BOTH pillarboxing & letterboxing. Otherwise, people need to leave this shit well enough alone!
    It's gotten so that I don't even respond to those/these threads anymore, I've said my piece multiple times already. (whoops, did it again)

    Scott

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    Well in my experience usually I have had to remove black bars from either top and bottom or 2 sides only and software like handbrake or avidemux handle this pretty much automatically. But then I am starting off with a very high quality - 3.5 to 4 mbps rips and aiming at reduction of file size. Now I have just come across a strange video. it has solid black bars on the 2 sides - and 2 black bars - not exactly black but pretty dark brownish color, like leuco cyan in chromogenic photographs, in stead of solid black. When I play the video in VLC at full screen I have a picture that occupies about 70 to 75 % of the screen in the center. The quality of the video is nothing to write home about so I doubt it can withstand re-encoding without suffering major loss in quality regardless of the bit rate and codec I might use. Does anyone have any suggestion on how to handle this ?

  18. Member olyteddy's Avatar
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    Originally Posted by pmshah View Post
    Well in my experience usually I have had to remove black bars from either top and bottom or 2 sides only and software like handbrake or avidemux handle this pretty much automatically. But then I am starting off with a very high quality - 3.5 to 4 mbps rips and aiming at reduction of file size. Now I have just come across a strange video. it has solid black bars on the 2 sides - and 2 black bars - not exactly black but pretty dark brownish color, like leuco cyan in chromogenic photographs, in stead of solid black. When I play the video in VLC at full screen I have a picture that occupies about 70 to 75 % of the screen in the center. The quality of the video is nothing to write home about so I doubt it can withstand re-encoding without suffering major loss in quality regardless of the bit rate and codec I might use. [COLOR="rgb(255, 0, 255)"]Does anyone have any suggestion on how to handle this[/COLOR] ?
    Zoom, Aspect Ratio and or Crop from VLC's Video sub menu?

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    Just to give you a bad example of ripping.

    The tools --> Codec Information under VLC gives the resolution as 720x576. Under normal full screen playing condition I have black and not so black bars all around. Now if I use the crop function in VLC I have to crop 87 pixels from top and bottom making real resolution like 720x402. I can get away with it if I use VLC but standalone media players can't handle it ! Unfortunately MediaInfo utility does not reveal the application used to rip the file.

    I just wish these media player manufacturers included VLC as the playing application in the device. After all they are ALL based on Linux and even Beta VLC does a fantastic job on my Android phone.

    BTW one feature I absolutely love about VLC on the desktop is that even playing at down to 50% speed sound does not get distorted at all. This feature is also included in the Android version. All you need is enough processing power. I very often need this especially for non English movies AND where there is a lot of conversation. I get enough time to read the subtitles. I am also hard on hearing due to permanently perforated non fixable eardrums. As a consequence I always prefer to have subtitled turned on.

  20. Originally Posted by pmshah View Post
    When I play the video in VLC at full screen I have a picture that occupies about 70 to 75 % of the screen in the center. The quality of the video is nothing to write home about so I doubt it can withstand re-encoding without suffering major loss in quality regardless of the bit rate and codec I might use. Does anyone have any suggestion on how to handle this ?
    It sounds like a 4:3 DVD which contains a wide aspect ratio picture. Normally when you run a 4:3 DVD full screen on a 16:9 screen, you'd have a 4:3 picture with black bars down each side (added on playback), but if a 4:3 DVD contains a wide screen image you'd end up with black bars top and bottom (encoded with the video) as well as each side (added on playback).

    If you want to re-encode it you'd resize it as per a normal 4:3 DVD and crop any black around the picture. If you crop 87 pixels from the top and bottom (nothing from the sides) and resize it to square pixels, the resizing should be around 786x402 for maximum resolution. Or 720x368 if you prefer to resize down..... assuming I'm correct about it being a 4:3 DVD rather than 16:9.

  21. it's like taking each frame one by one and saving it as an image, cropping it to specification, and then re-assembling the images one by one into a video stream.
    i had a magic converter exactly like you want, but dropped some where. it is yours if you find it.
    I would rather go with nic2k4 to search it back.

  22. It funny how most people try to change OP's mind to believe their own opinion instead of helping him find the answer to his question. And also it's funny how most people think that videos/movies are ALWAYS watched in FULL SCREEN instead of windowed mode.
    I, most of the time, multitask while watching videos/movies in windowed mode, and don't always feel like messing with the zoom/pan&scan features just so that I can hide the black bars to save some space on my screen. I would rather have it encoded in the correct ration (1920x816p) with no black bars than having it in 16x9 (1920x1080p) with the hard coded black bars.
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  23. Originally Posted by TomClancy View Post
    It funny how most people try to change OP's mind to believe their own opinion instead of helping him find the answer to his question.
    The OP asked how to remove the black bars from Bluray rips without re-encoding them. Please feel free to explain how to do it.

    Originally Posted by TomClancy View Post
    I would rather have it encoded in the correct ration (1920x816p) with no black bars than having it in 16x9 (1920x1080p) with the hard coded black bars.
    I'd say many/most people agree and crop the black bars when they re-encode video. I do, but that's not the question the OP asked.

  24. I'm a Super Moderator johns0's Avatar
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    Why re-encode and lose quality?Unless you have a monitor or hdtv that displays the video at 1920x816 native then you will always have black bars,the only reason i see to remove the black bars is to re-encode to a lower bitrate to fit more movies on a hdd or burnable disc.
    I think,therefore i am a hamster.

  25. This thread is still alive! Jagabo is the only one who actually answered most of the OP's question. Enim, I don't quite get the gist of your reply, it's either missing some words or wrong selection of words. Do you mean I gave a smart ass answer? I guess I could have been more specific. So, the reason you can't remove the black bars without re-encoding is due to the way video is encoded.

    One supported bluray format is MPEG2; it's composed of I, B and P frames, of those only the I frame is an actual picture (keyframe). B and P frames don't contain an image, they're a description of movement and difference between frames. To get an image you have to decode the B and P frames. So now you have all your pictures lined up (maybe cropped too), what do you do with them? You had to decode, now you have to re-encode into a "movie format" to be able to play the movie.

    As you proposed keeping your bluray rips in the same format, in this example we'd re-encode in MPEG2 format. This opens a possibility, encode to I frame only MPEG (TMPEGenc can crop and encode at the same time). It would have little loss of quality, but I'm not sure it would play in all devices.

    Most bluray video is encoded in VC-1 and H264 video and although the format is similar to MPEG2, I don't know if there are encoders that would let you crop and encode to all I frames (I haven't needed to play with those CODECs).

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  27. I came here searching for the same answer. My reason being that I have a 2.39:1 (aka Scope) constant height projected image.

    Using PLEX to view my media (as I usually do) unless the black bars have been cropped away, the picture is displayed as a small rectangle surrounded by black bars on all 4 sides. I could zoom in but that just degrades the picture quality.

    Alternately, I could use VLC but unless my subtitled Scope videos have the 'black bars' cropped off, the subtitles don't display (as they're normally in the black at the bottom of the picture).

    I could tell VLC to show the subtitles higher, but then they're too high with any 16x9 content.

    In the past I've used Handbrake but because the projected image is over 11 feet wide, I've not found a setting that hasn't added some sort of defect or reduced quality.


    Originally Posted by Cornucopia View Post
    The only valid reason I could see for losing black bars is if someone previously had added them and then put in the wrong aspect ratio/resolution in encoding, so the current player is inadvertantly adding BOTH pillarboxing & letterboxing. Otherwise, people need to leave this shit well enough alone!
    It's gotten so that I don't even respond to those/these threads anymore, I've said my piece multiple times already. (whoops, did it again)

    Scott

  28. Member FulciLives's Avatar
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    Originally Posted by Mattadore View Post
    I came here searching for the same answer. My reason being that I have a 2.39:1 (aka Scope) constant height projected image.

    Using PLEX to view my media (as I usually do) unless the black bars have been cropped away, the picture is displayed as a small rectangle surrounded by black bars on all 4 sides. I could zoom in but that just degrades the picture quality.

    Alternately, I could use VLC but unless my subtitled Scope videos have the 'black bars' cropped off, the subtitles don't display (as they're normally in the black at the bottom of the picture).

    I could tell VLC to show the subtitles higher, but then they're too high with any 16x9 content.

    In the past I've used Handbrake but because the projected image is over 11 feet wide, I've not found a setting that hasn't added some sort of defect or reduced quality.
    The problem is the fact that you chose to go with a non-standard display. Don't blame the media. Blame yourself. Might sound harsh but based on the way you described it, if you have a "super widescreen" BluRay (say 2.35:1) and it has selectable subtitles then you won't be able to view it properly. So basically you have a really retarded setup if it can't handle that. Who would ever purposefully set up a display like that? Nobody who thinks straight.

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    Originally Posted by TomClancy View Post
    I would rather have it encoded in the correct ration (1920x816p) with no black bars than having it in 16x9 (1920x1080p) with the hard coded black bars.
    Can you imagine bookmakers would do the same, all books in a library would have exactly the same few standard sizes. You open one and either the top/bottom or left/right is padded with absolute nothingness.

    Would you be surprised and ask why this idiocy exists?
    Beware, stuffy old librarians would give you a look as if you are crazy and, who knows, perhaps even ask you to leave as you are critical of the Holy Standard.

    Asking for a video that contains the size of the actual source is obviously total common sense, anyone who uses half his brain would admit that immediately but in the video world we are dealing with stuffy old engineers who keep living in the previous century.
    Last edited by newpball; 11th Jan 2015 at 12:54.

  30. @newpball, stop it with the stuffy old engineers comments already.

    Video acquisition and presentation exists and has existed in literally thousands of different forms and different media. Simply look at the RED.com site to see how many one single, innovative, mainstream, un-stuffy company uses right now. Filmmakers (and engineers) continually push the envelope in creativity and technology.

    Somehow that material all has to be unified in some way that allows your computer, your television, your Blu Ray player, your multiplex and even your pirates to be able to see and hear it, all while maintaining reasonable access to the cultural legacy of what's come before, without requiring consumers to buy completely new equipment every month.

    Previous standards weren't developed out of stupidity or ignorance, they were developed as real, often ingenious engineering solutions using the best minds and technologies of the time. As they continue to do now.

    If you have better ideas, that fully resolve these issues, please publish them here as guidelines or a manifesto. Otherwise you're just showing your own shortsighted lack of imagination.




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