Crop sides to make 4:3 DVD

[Grenge]

I have just gotten a DTV card and when I tape TV shows which are 4:3 images they display the "black Bars" on the sides. Shown Here.



I would like to crop the sides so that when I put the file onto DVD it will be fullscreen.

I initially record the file using Fusion HDTV and save it in the *.tp format. Then when I use the Fusion Converter to convert the file to MPEG it squashes the picture so it is a 16:9 in a 4:3 Ratio shown in the next post


So basicly what I would like to do is crop the black bars at the side and stretch the image to 4:3 fulscreen image.
What software would be easiest to do this?

[Grenge]

This is the second picture

[Baldrick]

You can crop with many encoders like tmpgenc plus, mainconcept mpeg encoder. They supports mpeg2 also or frameserve from DGMPGDec to the encoder.

[Wile_E]

Let me try to understand your situation. Your DTV card is placing the 4:3 material inside a 16:9 frame when captured? Is there no option to capture directly to 4:3?

[Grenge]

The DTV card isn't putting the 4:3 image inside the 16:9 frame. The TV station transmits 4:3 shows that way. The program will only display the 4:3 image (cropped) but will record the entire transmission stream with the black bars on the side.

I tried using VideoReDo to convert the transmission stream to an MPEG and it will keep the aspect ratio. I also tried TMPGENC which wouldn't let me open the file. But Mainconcept MPEG Encoder works fine, except that it is a bit expensive.

[guns1inger]

Personally, I would leave them be. Once you trim the sides you will have to resize and stretch the image and risk reducing the quality substantially. I would keep the quality at the price of a smaller image.

[Grenge]

Personally, I would leave them be. Once you trim the sides you will have to resize and stretch the image and risk reducing the quality substantially. I would keep the quality at the price of a smaller image.

That was my point. I wanted the conversion to keep the aspect ratio, but trim the sides off, which is what the VideoReDo & Mainconcept MPEG Encoder does.

I also found this info from another site at http://tonyspage.abock.de/

Dealing with 4:3 pillarboxed material: So, if the TV program you are archiving to DVD is 4:3 (pillarboxed in a 16:9 frame, the way it is generally done in Australia), it is time to add the Pan & Scan information so your standalone DVD player can make the 4:3 image fullscreen for 4:3 TVs. The simplest program for this is IfoEdit. Open the IFO file created by TMPGenc DVD Author... there more than one IFO files created, at least one for the menu and one for the video. The menu one is called "VIDEO_TS.IFO" and the typical video ones are called "VTS_01_0.IFO". There will be one VTS_0X_Y.IFO per title you have added to the disk. Open the video IFO in IfoEdit, choose the video stream in the list, double click on it, and select "4:3 Pan and Scan" and save the IFO. See a screen capture of the setting to choose here (notice I chose the movie MPEG-2, not the background/menu info). Then you can use the burning utility that comes with TMPGenc DVD Author or any of your favourite utils (I actually leave TMPGenc DVD Author with its pop-up window asking to burn the structure up, run IfoEdit, then go back to DVD Author and allow it to burn).