Need Help with HandBrake regarding manual cropping and resize

[FulciLives]

Hello

I've been using XVID4PSP for most of my x264 conversion needs but I've decided to give HandBrake a try.

Now I see that it has automatic and manual cropping and that part seems to be straight forward.

The whole resizing thing confuses me though.

Let me explain what I am trying to do.

I want to encode a video that is 720x480 16x9 anamorphic (NTSC DVD source)
I want to crop the black (this is an old film and has some junk on the sides and is 2.35:1 so has black encoded into it above & below the image). So I want to do some cropping to remove all the black but then I want to add black back (or pad it) so that in the end I get a 720x480 16x9 video.

I've always used AviSynth for MPEG-2 and x264 encoding so if it makes more sense this is what I want to do:

Crop(12, 64, -8, -60)
AddBorders(10, 62, 10, 62)

I can do all this with XVID4PSP but I can't figure out how to do this with HandBrake.

Any ideas?

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

P.S.
A big shout out to all the old timers. I'm barely around here anymore but I do miss it

[mike20021969]

I can't figure out how to do this with HandBrake.

I don't think you can add borders with HandBrake.

[aedipuss]

try vidcoder. it's a gui for handbrake and has a nice preview.

nice to see ya around!

[aedipuss]

edit - h264 is square pixel , there is no 720x480 16/9 that will play on all devices. go for a straight 1:1 2.35 mp4 or mpv.

[dragonkeeper]

Crop(12, 64, -8, -60)
AddBorders(10, 62, 10, 62)

I was unable to find away using handbrake as it does not use avisynth there is no script to manually edit. So i switch to using Ripbot264 it generates an avs file that you can edit. Also if you crop then select on of the present output formats it will add black borders to the video to achieve the necessary frame resolution.

Once ripbot has scanned your file set you desired encoding method CQ or 2-ipass, click properties crop your video where needed, for size select SD-NTSC (ripbot will add black borders to avisynth script automaticly) if that is all you need to do click ok (FYI on the proceeding properties pages you can deinterlace, IVTC, Decimate, change fps, color correction, denoise and add audio delay.)

[FulciLives]

It seems I can't do with HandBrake what I can do with XVID4PSP but my XVID4PSP has been acting up lately and making encodes that are less than perfect. Could be because I'm using an old version of it and maybe the x264 it uses is an old version? Who knows. HandBrake seems to work but the whole resize thing is making me mental.

I decided to just auto crop (which only cut 16 total from the width and is good enough) and then resize to 704x352

The thing making me mental is that I wanted to cut 20 from the width (I was cutting 2 extra pixels on either side) and it wanted to resize to 720 width but it makes no sense to resize from 710 to 720 so ... oh well.

I think it will be fine the way it is (encode is running now).

Thanks!

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

P.S.
I hate the "new" XVID4PSP interface which is why I'm using an old version.

[FulciLives]

Crop(12, 64, -8, -60)
AddBorders(10, 62, 10, 62)

I was unable to find away using handbrake as it does not use avisynth there is no script to manually edit. So i switch to using Ripbot264 it generates an avs file that you can edit. Also if you crop then select on of the present output formats it will add black borders to the video to achieve the necessary frame resolution.

Once ripbot has scanned your file set you desired encoding method CQ or 2-ipass, click properties crop your video where needed, for size select SD-NTSC (ripbot will add black borders to avisynth script automaticly) if that is all you need to do click ok (FYI on the proceeding properties pages you can deinterlace, IVTC, Decimate, change fps, color correction, denoise and add audio delay.)

Thanks for the recommendation of using Ripbot264

I've never used it but I might give it a try now

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[jagabo]

When you add borders back, try to keep the borders a multiple of 8. At least two of them. So instead of:

AddBorders(10, 62, 10, 62)

use:

AddBorders(8, 64, 12, 60)

That will get you better compression and will reduce artifacts at the mod8 edges.

I don't know why you are doing that when you can just leave the video cropped and encode with the original SAR. Unless you have a player that insists on stretching everything to full screen.

[FulciLives]

Well HandBrake pisses me off. I got it to work more or less using the HandBrake method of no black borders but although the MKV was in sync itself ... when I tried to convert to M2TS (x264 with pass through AC-3 on the MKV) the M2TS was out of sync. Sigh.

So I did the conversion with RipBot264 and not only could I crop it and pad it out the way I wanted to (cheers) but the MKV and the resulting M2TS made from it were both in sync.

I'll be using RipBot264 from now on instead of HandBrake.

Thanks for the help and suggestions

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

P.S.
Where is LordSmurf ... he still around?