getting rid of the letterbox

[jagsman]

I want to convert videos to watch on my psp, but i would like to have the picture fill the screen on the psp and not have the letterbox effect. I have tried to convert with Xilisoft, but i only succeed in making a copy of the video, but with a lower resolution (480x272), and with the letterbox intact. The psp has no zoom facility when watching video, so i lose about 25% of the screen to the black bands. Is there any way to fix this? Is there any software out there that can help?

Thanks

[redwudz]

If the black bands are just at the sides or just on the top and bottom, you would have to crop some of the picture off, along with the bands, to fit the aspect ratio of your display. Just changing the size won't help. If you don't mind losing some of the picture, that's one method.

If the black bands are on all four sides, then you would have to crop them all and usually resize the picture, depending on the video format used.

Both of those processes require re-encoding with some quality loss.

What format is the video in? You can drop it into MediaInfo and it will tell you. Then we might be able to advise you on a method or a program to use.

And welcome to our forums.

[guns1inger]

You can lose 25% of the screen to black bands, or lose 25% of the image (or more, depending on the source) by cropping it down to fit. It can be a tough call on smaller screens, but personally, I prefer to keep the image intact.

[jagsman]

I have quite a few vids but they are mostly AVI files. I dont mind losing a little bit of the picture when resizing, its just a case of trial and error to see what i am more happy with. Its just the method that i dont know.

Thanks for the replies.

[redwudz]

Try VirtualDub and the resize filter. You can also crop first using the null transform filter, then resize. But you will have to re-encode either way and you will have some quality lose with both resizing and re-encoding. Making the bitrate higher while re-encoding will eliminate some quality loss, but then the file size will be bigger. Precise Bi-cubic or Lanczos resizing will give you probably the best quality. And make sure you select an output codec or VD will default to huge RGB files.