Cropping avi file

[Rogue3]

I have captured some video with my DV camera as the high quality AVI file. I'd like to crop this video to fit widescreen without actually reconverting it. Is this possible? I'd still like it to be kept as the high quality AVI file for when I'm ready to do my video editing.

I used to do all my cropping AFTER editing, but now that Studio 9 has the ability to do 16x9, I thought I'd try their DVD creation out to see how it works. For this, I need to have the video cropped BEFORE I use it in Studio. Unless someone knows how to crop it within Studio??

[pbhalerao]

Haven't used Studio 9. Probably it does not allow cropping. But there are other techniques. Maybe this will help:

http://www.digital-director.co.uk/guide-convert-4-3-to-16-9-64.htm

Regards,

[guns1inger]

Cropping it wont make it 16:9, only 4:3 letterbox. If you want true anamorphic then you need a camera or lens that will shoot that way. Anything else you do will degrade the footage to some extent. To do what you are after will require cropping, then resizing before you get true 16:9. Studio 9 will be expecting true 16:9 footage. If you give 4:3 it will just end up squashed.

[Rogue3]

Cropping it wont make it 16:9, only 4:3 letterbox. If you want true anamorphic then you need a camera or lens that will shoot that way. Anything else you do will degrade the footage to some extent. To do what you are after will require cropping, then resizing before you get true 16:9. Studio 9 will be expecting true 16:9 footage. If you give 4:3 it will just end up squashed.

Actually, cropping it can make 16:9, as I've done it. I was just looking for a faster way. Currently, I take my analog footage, edit and export using Studio and then crop while converting it in tmpgenc. I then use DVD Maestro to the authoring, where I apply the 16x9 tag. Plays great on my 47" widescreen TV.

[pbhalerao]

Actually what guns1inger said is true - cropping is not true 16:9. By cropping, some details are cut out. Cropping to achieve 16:9 Widescreen is the same as a 4:3 version of a Widescreen movie; only the results are vice versa.

Please check out these excellent articles on 4:3 and 16:9:

http://www.camcorderinfo.com/content/article_widescreen_mode.htm
http://www.maxent.org/video/16x9.html

But Rogue3, for you if you are satisfied with cropping to achieve widescreen, then there is nothing wrong. I will advise that when filming the footage, you should give due consideration to the cropped out part of the picture and avoid important details out there.

Regards,

[Soopafresh]

Guns1inger - Thank you very much for explaining this in such clear terms.

[guns1inger]

What you have tmpgenc doing is a crop and resize on the way through. The net result is a video strtched vertically and tagged as 16:9. It will display correctly on a widescreen TV, but it does not contain the extra image data that a true 16:9 shot video would have. You could achieve the same thing using avisynth or vitualdub, then frame serve out to tmgenc. Avisynth is probably faster than tmpgenc's own filters. I don't believe you can do it to the original footage without reencoding, although if you have the space, and use a lossless codec, you won't lose any quality.

[Rogue3]

Well, I only have a handfull of analog tapes to do this with. Everything I record now is filmed in widescreen.

[guns1inger]

16:9 or 4:3 letterbox ?

[Rogue3]

16:9, but its not true anamorphic since the sony cam I use crops the top and bottom off. But, it doesn't look bad. I'd love to get a converter for true anamorphic, but at $500+ the wife would kill me