Removing the black bars on MKV video files

[rocknrolla115]

Hi all, new here

Need some help with a problem i have, i`m trying to remove/crop the black bars in some of my downloaded MKV video files so that i can show them with my projector on my cinemascope screen (2.35:1) and fill the entire screen without the blackbars showing outside of the screen.
The movies/files i have are in 2.35:1 aspect ratio but the resolution is 1920x1080 and not like i want them to be = 1920x800

Is there an easy way to crop out/remove these blackbars so that the resolution is 1920x800 instead?

If anyone can please help me i would appreciate it very much.

Thanks.

[Baldrick]

How do you play them?

If you are playing on a computer can you crop the video with a software player like VLC.

Or else must you reconvert to crop like with for example vidcoder, handbrake, ripbot264, etc.

[rocknrolla115]

I play them from a USB stick on a OPPO-BDP93 blu-ray player.

Which one is the most easy of the programs you mentioned? And is there a step-by-step guide somewhere for this task?

I`m not very good with these applications..

[sanlyn]

Vidcoder tutorial in the guides section of this forum: https://www.videohelp.com/guides/vidcoder-tutorial-id1233#1233

[intracube]

This doesn't make sense.

You haven't said what your projector is, but assuming it's 16:9 native, what would cropping the top and bottom off a 1920x1080 video achieve?

If you play a 1920x800 video on the OPPO, wouldn't it convert it back to 1920x1080 before sending it over HDMI? Even if you could feed the projector a 1920x800 signal, if its a 16:9 device, it'd just pad the image back to 16:9.

Or am I missing something?

Also, what do you mean by 'black bars'. I'm wondering if you mean a dark grey area above and below the 2.39:1 image - which is a hardware limitation of the 16:9 projector (assuming it is 16:9).

There's also a possibility the black bars on this downloaded MKV file aren't actually black but grey - if the MKV has been badly created. Cropping/processing would help in this instance, but not for the other scenario.

[rocknrolla115]

Problem solved!

I tried vidcoder like Baldrick suggested and followed the guide & it worked perfectly! The black bars are gone and it fills the entire screen just like i wanted to. I even cropped a 16:9 (1.78:1) image for fun just to see how it looked and if you can live with losing some of the picture at top & bottom it`s possible to see 16:9 content on a cinemascope screen this way.

To intracube: No, it doesn`t convert it back to 1920x1080 because once the 240 lines of black have been cropped out it will send a 1920x800 signal. And yes, my projector is 16:9 native.

Anyway, thanks for your help guys