Problems with VIDEO_TS (or VOB) to Xvid MOV file

[KirinRiotCrash]

Hello,

I'm using the latest version of ffmpegX 0.0.9t and ran into a problem converting both a VIDEO_TS and single VOB files into a QuickTime movie file using Xvid.

It generally happens when I have to crop the letterboxes out and set the Video size to a non-4:3 resolution (eg. 320x176, 640x368).

When it's done, I get a 492x368 px (or 312x176 px if used the smaller example) QuickTime movie, an oddly shaped 4:3 movie, minus the letterboxes.

Is there a problem with the ffmpeg encoder or something?

[extract]

Remember to revisit the Video Tab after cropping as the cropping automatically changes the image size to the one in the box. If it is an anamorphic widescreen source, you will end up with an oddly shaped 4:3 movie, unless of cause you set the correct aspect ratio in the Video Tab.

[Laga]

Hello,

I have come upon a similar problem using the latest 0.0.9xr2 version of ffmpegX.
I found a workaround for ffmepgX not passing the correct arguments to ffmpeg.
It may probably interest anyone wanting to crop a video using ffmpeg.

I had made the acquisition of a digital terrestrial 720x576 mpeg2 video clip that was letterboxed with two black bands of 76 pixels height each.

I wanted to crop the video while converting from MP2 to MP4.

I tried any number of combinations including the use of crop params and video resize formats that made sense. No matter what, the video output would be satisfactorily cropped but stretched vertically to make its aspect 4:3. Yuk.

I further tried typing direct commands under the terminal shell, following the example of the commands I could observe in the ffmpegX progress.

Bottom line : these commands in the shell terminal made the trick

1) /Applications/ffmpegX.app//Contents/Resources/ffmpeg -i file.mpg -y -threads 2 -vtag DIVX -map 0.0:0.0 -f avi -vcodec mpeg4 -b 977 -aspect 720:424 -croptop 76 -cropbottom 76 -r pal -g 240 -me epzs -qmin 2 -qmax 15 -bf 1 -qpel -trell -acodec copy -map 0.1:0.1 -benchmark -pass 1 -passlogfile file.mpg.ff.avi file.mpg.ff.avi

2) the second command is the same as the first, replacing -pass 1 with -pass 2

Yes, this was a two-pass encoding, I always check the best encoding options, this is performed only once.

The point I want to make is : use the -aspect 720:424 to pass the cropped video resize parameters and leave aside the -s 720x424 size parameters that ffmpegX will provide.

I would suggest to Major or whoever maintains the ffmepgX program to set these options when cropping and provide a set of non-constraint video size parameters.