Removing black bars in an Divx/AVI Video

[Amorous]

Does anyone know how to remove the black bars in movies that are in Divx/avi format. I have an Video Jukebox by NHJ model MPM-201 and im trying to remove the black bars (wide screen) before I move the movie over to the portable. I used a program called MPEG4 Modifier and it removed them but when I transferred the file over the black bars were there again. ???

[guns1inger]

No, they weren't. Very few if any Divx/Xvid movies have black bars. Your player is putting them in so the image fits the TV screen from side to side. In simple terms, television comes in only two aspect ratios. Fullscreen is 4:3 or 1.33:1. Widescreen is 16:9, or 1.78:1. if the avi files don't match these aspect ratios exactly, black bars are automatically added to fill out the frame. Most modern TV shows are shot in 1.78:1, but most movies are shot in 1.85, 2.35 or 2.40. On top of that, many avi films are arbitrarily cropped and match any of these either.

So you have a few options;

1. Live with it. Everything is working fine, you are seeing all you are meant to see, and you aren't missing anything.

2. Use the zoom facility on your player, if it has one, to fill out the screen and chop off the ends.

3. Resize the avi to fit a 1.78 aspect ratio, and live with everything being distorted.

4. Crop and resize the files to 1.78 aspect ratio, and lose the end of the image.

Option 1 is obviously the best choice, but it is up to you.

[Amorous]

Thanks for the information. But do you know of a high quality program that will resize the avi to fit a 1.78 aspect ratio? Some of the movies the black bars take up 1/2 the size of the screen.

[ROF]

Thanks for the information. But do you know of a high quality program that will resize the avi to fit a 1.78 aspect ratio? Some of the movies the black bars take up 1/2 the size of the screen.

This would require you to skew the image onscreen which might be worse than those black bars. If you've ever seen a video that's been stretched you'll know what I mean. People look like Cone Heads.

[lacywest]

Thanks for the information. But do you know of a high quality program that will resize the avi to fit a 1.78 aspect ratio? Some of the movies the black bars take up 1/2 the size of the screen.

The help you've received is real .... this is the way the movie was meant to be seen.

I know a friend who likes to see his movies in Full Screen and one time he told me he was watching a wide screen movie with the zoom on ... he learned quickly why that is not good ...

My friend was watching the movie and the main character [in the movie] was talking to somebody but who ?? ... he zoomed out and then he saw who he was talking to.

I have a Sony HD 51" .... I like Wide Screen movies.

[guns1inger]

You can do it with Virtualdub and the crop and resize filters. You will lose the ends of the movie, so you may end up in the same situation as Lacy West's friend. Of course, you won't be able to zoom out to see who it is, they will be gone.

Why do you wan't to throw away up to a third or more of the movie ?