Back to the black bars

[Joolz2020]

I'm overwhelmed by the wide selection of free software available to deal with black bars on ripped video. Can someone recommend the best solution to deal with my specific issue?

I'm currently ripping DVDs to ISO, so ISO is the input file.

The video is actually 16:9 but has been put into a 4:3 'container' with black bars. (In some cases the video is going to be smaller, ie movies, but my TV is 16:9 so I guess I can make that assumption.)

The output file should not reduce quality of original and should be playable on my WD media player. ISO is preferable, as it seems to be trouble-free compared to some other file types (codec issues).

Thanks in advance!

[poisondeathray]

The output file should not reduce quality of original and should be playable on my WD media player

not possible without re-encoding

this means some quality will be reduced , because WD doesn't support lossless codecs like lagarith etc...

[AlanHK]

ISO is preferable, as it seems to be trouble-free compared to some other file types (codec issues).

"ISO" mean absolutely nothing as to the file type.
It's just a whole disc as a single file.
You can put any kind of file at all in it.


What you probably have is a DVD fileset in an ISO.
That's not very efficient, but it probably is a safe choice.

[jagabo]

Try somethink like Xvid4PSP and make h.264/ac3 MKV files. It has auto cropping for letterboxed DVDs.

[Joolz2020]

Ok so I installed Xvid4PSP and it came up with default MKV option, so I went for it but changed video and audio encoding to 'copy' to ensure I lose no quality, and it makes a very small file (1.2Gb vs 6Gb starting size), so have I lost quality? I've yet to preview the result on full size TV. I'm sure I've lost quality as previous questions I've raised have confirmed that you can't reduce the VOB (ISO) file size without losing some quality.

Realising afterwards that copying the video encoding kind of negated the removal of the black bars, I've tried to change but not sure what settings to use (as the MKV profile is remembering my change!). I did try some settings which took 12 hours to create a file which seems to have the black bars removed and is now just under 1Gb (the size of the black bars)?

I don't mind it taking 12 hours to convert if this maintains video quality (although size indicates not!).

Thanks again...

[guns1inger]

Every time you re-encode with a lossy codec you lose some quality. However how much depends on the codec you use, and the settings you configure. H.264, which has become the de-facto video standard for the MKV container, can compress much better than mpeg-2 (which DVD uses). So much so that depending on the content you may well get near source quality at only a third or a quarter of the original size. The best option, when encoding with something like Xvid4PSP is to use quality based encoding, rather than bitrate. Select quality value - for H2.64 start with 21 or 22 - and encode. Check the quality. If you want better quality, choose a value of 20 or even 18. The lower tha value the better the quality, but the slower the encode and the larger the file size. At some point you will reach a state where the encoded file is larger than the source.

The black bars themselves use very little bitrate, so you gain little in the way of space by removing them. I would expect you can achieve similar quality to the source in around 1.8 - 2.2 GB, depending on running time and content.

[netmask56]

I had a similar exercise - an old ballet DVD Black Tights ( http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0053726/) - 2.20:1 within a 4:3 frame. Played back as a postage stamp ie black all around.

I made a new DVD using VSO ConvertXtoDVD from the original DVD VIDEO_TS collection and using the resize function made a true 16:9 DVD with a 2.20:1 image within - Smallish black bars top and bottom.

First I extracted the chapter points from the original DVD using ChapterXtractor and inserted those timings in my new backup DVD. I used the Lanczoz (VSO) resize filter in ConvertXtoDVD (there are 15 resize filters you can choose from)

Quite quick the reencoding for a full movie took less than 1 hour and the results were very good for a 1960 production. As the entire soundtrack was released in stereo on vinyl unlike the film which was released in mono I am going to attempt to replace the sound track with the stereo vinyl version - wish me luck!!!

[Joolz2020]

I've tried various quality values with xvid4psp - I think I went as low as 10, which produced an output file slightly bigger than the original. Even that, although brilliantly removing the black bars, has noticeable quality loss when compared to the original.

I do get a message that I don't have YV12 decoder, even after installing from download.com (YV12 codec for Quicktime) and then reinstalling xvid4psp.

Don't know whether fixing the YV12 thing might make a difference if I can fix... otherwise not sure what else to do...