Newbie problems: TS to Mpg conversion

[waehuun]

Hello!

A few days ago I recorded a movie (cliffhanger) and now I am trying to convert this TS file to mpg so that I can save it on my Harddisk or burn it on a DVD to watch it with my DVD player. I also want to remove the black bars at the top and the bottom (its 16:9) and reduce the filesize to save disk space. I have downloaded various tools and read many tutorials and forum posts but I still encountered many problems. Here is what I have already done:

1. I demuxed the TS file to get a m2v and a mpa file.

2. I used Mgep2Schnitt09 to cut it, checked the box "Aspect ratio 9:16", downloaded the encoder HC21 (to use with Mpeg2Schnitt) and progressed the file.

Unfortunately there was no way to reduce the filesize (still +2 GB), removing the bars also did not work, they are still in the video file.

I tried to use VirtualDub to shrink the file, but it refused to open the mpg file.
DVDshrink also did not open the mpg file.

I tried to shrink the .mpg file with ReJig and got m2v and mpa files again. Muxed these with ImagoMPEGMuxer, but filesize is still larger than 1 GB, however the quality drastically dropped.

I read the ProjectX tutorial on TS to MPG but it only explains how to demux and tells little about removing bars or reducing filesize.
I have also read a lot about TMPGEnc but since it is costly I do not want to use it. But I suppose that what I am trying to do is possible using only freeware.

Is there any convenient way to do what I am trying or could you point me to a tutorial describing how to cope with TS files?

thanks for any help.

[Baldrick]

If you want to remove the black borders you must crop the picture, it's not really worth it.

Why do you need it less than 1GB? I would convert to a standard DVD with for example DVD FLick but you wont be able to remove the black borders. Or if your dvd player support divx then use AutoGK and make avi divx or xvid.