Cropping:Ratios

[meldavid]

Hi,

I would like to pose a question about cropping. I am a lil confused on what aspect ratio to use for cropping DV footage to remove distorted overscan edges from a recorded broadcast.

I use a Sony Digital 8 video camera to record movies cause we don't have a HD/DVD recorder yet!

PAL DV footage is captured at 720x576 which has an aspect ratio of 5:4.

But the broadcasted signal and target format is 4:3 standard size TV.

If I want to crop the edges which aspect ratio do I use? 5:4 or 4:3?

Currently, I am entering these crop values into ffmpegX: | top | bottom | left | right |

| 12 | 12 | 14 | 16 |


So the PAL DV footage that was 720 x 576 is now 690 x 552 which, after cropping the edges, then gets resized by ffmpegX's mpeg2 engine to DVD compliant size of 720 x 576.
My crop values have the ratio of 5:4.


Is this correct? Or should I be using 4:3 because the target viewing format is a 4:3 TV?

[Case]

You cropped correctly. You crop with the same ratio as your source, then the cropped movie will scale correctly, maintaining the dimensions (width, height) of the objects on the footage.