Cropping MPEG-4 files

[stshipley]

Hello All,

The newest version of EyeTV allows for encoding to MPEG-4. (Before, it only encoded to MPEG-2.) Obviously, in terms of disk space, MPEG-4 is the play.

What I want to do with ffmpegx is crop off the black bars of letterboxed shows, to save yet more space. I've had a lot of trouble using ffmpegx to go from one type of MPEG-4 to another. Generally, with the settings I chose, the process immediately quits right after I start. Also at peril here is the problem of taking a 4:3 720x480 (rectangular pixels) file and making a 640x352 (square pixels) file when I'm done. Can anyone give me any advice on how to succesfully crop the MPEG-4 files and correct the pixel ratio?

Thanks in advance,

-STS

[stshipley]

Some supplemental information: the EyeTV Output format of the MPEG-4 files is an "AVI" . . . so perhaps the MPEG-4 info is in an AVI container . . . .

-STS

[major]

Wait a few days for ffmpegX 0.0.9s where cropping has several improvements.

[dr9553]

awsome.. .9s!! You are the man Major!