How to crop video image from DVD

[thinredline]

Hello. I hope this is the right place to post this.

I have a full DVD which is like this:



The subtitles are hardcoded.

How can i crop the image (the black bars up and down), so that the subtitles are cropped too?

Maybe PgcEdit does that?

[aedipuss]

no that is 16/9 encoded as 4:3 what is the end format you are looking to have? different tools for varying outputs. easiest is probably vidcoder using it's visual crop function to mp4 or mkv.

[manono]

If for DVD, AviSynth's Letterbox command:

Letterbox(124,124)#although you can see from the grey along the sides, your black levels are all messed up

[gonwk]

Hi ThinRedline,

This might be a long way around ... but I would convert your DVD to AVI ... then use VirutalDub to clean it up. You can Crop and add Sharpness and so forth to make your colors Crisper and take some of that white-wash look out of your video.

BTW, what is the name of this Movie ... looks interesting!

G!

[hech54]

You WILL need to re-encode that. The simplest way is to MASK....not crop. VirtualDub with the Border Control plugin. Add a black mask(top and bottom to make it look even - the mask will probably be "blacker" than the original black) then frameserve out to an mpeg encoder.

[robjv1]

Another trick someone else mentioned recently, if you want to avoid re-encoding the video is to reauthor the disc, adding a subtitle that consists of a mask.

https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/343940-Resolved-Use-Subtitle-to-Create-Border-on-DV...ut-Re-encoding

[thinredline]

Hello all and thank you for your suggestions.
First of all, I don't want to encode the movie in avi.
I want to keep the full DVD as it is. (i already could grab a cropped avi)


maybe Avisynth that manono suggested, does that?
I'm a bit confused by all the suggestions.

I usually demux the video with PgcDemux to add subtitles afterwards (using the guide for adding subtitles to DVD).
So, can i do anything to the file that is extracted with PgcDemux WITHOUT reencoding it?
(maybe the same software that would be used could tweak the black levels of the movie too?)

I gues the correct question would be, what software edits m2v files, without re-encoding?

By the way, the movie is: Fury of the Pagans (an italian peplum film)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0057086/

[manono]

what software edits m2v files, without re-encoding?

None, if by 'edit' you mean letterbox the top and bottom as I described, fix the black levels and the color (it also looks a bit greenish to me). Any filtering will require reencoding. However, since that DVD seems to be of such poor quality to begin with, you should be able to actually improve on it.

[thinredline]

well, the only thing that concerns me is the cropping. I don't mind much the picture quality.
I saw someone mentioning Adobe Premiere

[thinredline]

Ok, I can't find a solution.
I can find many software that import m2v files and can edit, but none exports/saves as m2v.

I myself use Magix Movie edit which imports m2v. But i can export to mpeg.
and muxman doesn't import mpeg, but only m1v, m2v, mpv.

So that would mean I would have to reencode 2 times to make a full DVD.
one time to edit/reencode the m2v to mpeg, and then reencode the mpeg back to DVD structure.

[hech54]

Who told you that you needed to demux it?

[thinredline]

I want to add new subtitles.
So the process would be to demux the video and remux it back with the subtitles (as explained in the adding subtitles to DVD guide)

[aedipuss]

demuxing doesn't get rid of hardcoded subs. they will still be there in the m2v they are permanently encoded into the video.

[thinredline]

demuxing doesn't get rid of hardcoded subs. they will still be there in the m2v they are permanently encoded into the video.

That's exactly why I opened this thread.
To find a way to crop the demuxed video file (crop the black bars up and down, so the subs go away)
that's why i'm asking if there is an m2v editor that exports to m2v too, without reencoding.

in any case of misunderstanding:
-I have this full DVD.
-I want to crop the video image so that the Spanish subtitles go away.
-I want to put English subtitles in the DVD.

and all these without having to reencode anything.

[hech54]

I'm outa here.

[poisondeathray]

demuxing doesn't get rid of hardcoded subs. they will still be there in the m2v they are permanently encoded into the video.

That's exactly why I opened this thread.
To find a way to crop the demuxed video file (crop the black bars up and down, so the subs go away)
that's why i'm asking if there is an m2v editor that exports to m2v too, without reencoding.

in any case of misunderstanding:
-I have this full DVD.
-I want to crop the video image so that the Spanish subtitles go away.
-I want to put English subtitles in the DVD.

and all these without having to reencode anything.

Nope. What you ask for require re-encoding (the cropping part and adding back the border) or if you mask it (it still requires re-encoding)

[manono]

So that would mean I would have to reencode 2 times to make a full DVD.
one time to edit/reencode the m2v to mpeg, and then reencode the mpeg back to DVD structure.

You only have to reencode once. If you're saddled with some crap program that won't allow you to save out an M2V (something wrong with using a 'real' MPEG-2 encoder?), then simply demux your MPEG and send off the now separate audio and video to Muxman for authoring. One way to demux is to open the MPEG in DGIndex followed by File->Save Project and Demux Video.

[thinredline]

Sorry manono, I didn't quite understand you.
how can i remux the video, since muxman accepts only m2v files? No mpegs.

[manono]

how can i remux the video, since muxman accepts only m2v files? No mpegs.

By doing what I suggested in my previous post - demux the MPEG into M2V and AC3 (or whatever the audio is).

[thinredline]

oh, let me get this straight.

1)I demux the video from DVD with Pgcdemux.
2) I edit the resulting m2v file in my software and export to mpeg. (this stage involves a reencoding)
3)open the mpeg in DGindex and press "save project and demux video", so that gives me a m2v without reencoding.
4)Use Muxman to remux back the video with audio, subtitles etc..

Am I right?

[manono]

Am I right?

I suppose, if you're married to this Magix Movie Edit. Normal people would make the edits in an AviSynth script and then send that script to their encoder (CCE, HCEnc, whatever) to be encoded to the M2V.

3)open the mpeg in DGindex and press "save project and demux video", so that gives me a m2v without reencoding.

That's what demux means - extract without reencoding. DGIndex can't reencode anything anyway, even if you wanted it to.

[thinredline]

Ok, thank you.

well, I don't understand anything about scripts and stuff so that's why i stick to the one I'm using..
i downloaded avisynth, but I can't understand anything.. anyway

[robjv1]

Yeah, unfortunately you'll have to re-encode, so you'll need to use a good MPEG2 encoder to keep the quality up to par and not deteriorate the source further. At a high enough bitrate, you won't likely lose much honestly.

If you're aversive to using AviSynth scripting, you can achieve what you want using VirtualDub as well, which gives you a visual interface that is easier to work with. The "cropping" (for the purposes of this discussion, the proper term would be masking and not cropping -- if you actually crop the video you'll end up with new issues) is easy to do in VirtualDub -- there are several different ways of accomplishing it, two of them have been suggested in this thread, but you can also use the built in 'fill' filter to achieve it as well, so there's a third way. All of them are fairly easy.

[thinredline]

Actually rob, i was thinking of cropping the video in my software, so as to convert 4:3 into 16:9.
Do you think i'll have other issues afterwards? (eg. with the ifos of the DVD etc.)

here's what I've come up with:

[manono]

Do you think i'll have other issues afterwards?

If you try and create a 1280x720 DVD (like your picture), you will.

Do you actually know how to both redo your letterbox and crop it down and resize to 720x576 for 16:9 encoding?

But yes, lots of people convert 4:3 to 16:9 DVDs and don't have problems with the IFOs. If they know what they're doing. And don't be surprised if it doesn't look any better.

[thinredline]

yes, i won't create a 1280x720.
i just exported the jpeg that way. i tried other default dimensions, and always it exported to 4:3.
So, i exported to 1280x720 which i knew was widescreen.
I'll have to look more into it, to find the correct dimensions.
I just made this quickly..

by the way, i could leave it to 4:3, and make it widescreen manually in my player each time I play the DVD.
But since i'll go into all that trouble re-encoding, i thought i should change it from the start to 16:9, so as not to have to tweak it in my dvd player each time.


edit:
ok, the video exports fine in widescreen 720x576, but when i try to save an image it's not widescreen. I don't understand why. anyway, doesn't matter, as long as the video is ok.

[gonwk]

... By the way, the movie is: Fury of the Pagans (an italian peplum film)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0057086/

Hi ThinRedline,

Thanks for the Movie's Title and IMDB link. I tried to find a Trailer for this movie and couldn't find anything. No wonder you want to Save the DVD ... it seems super hard to locate.

G!

[r0lZ]

How can i crop the image (the black bars up and down), so that the subtitles are cropped too?

Maybe PgcEdit does that?

PgcEdit cannot physically crop the video. It is not a video editing program. However, there is a cheap and easy solution to the problem, but that solution works only with specific hardware.

Right-click on the main movie PGC, and select "Domain Stream Attributes". In the video frame, 4:3 should be selected. Tick the "Source Picture Letterboxed" option. That option is also sometimes called "already letterboxed". It is supposed to inform the player that the video is a 16:9 video letterboxed in a 4:3 frame, with horizontal black borders. When the player is connected to a 16:9 TV, it should send a signal to the TV that informs it that the image should be displayed full screen, and therefore without the black borders (and, in your case, without the hardcoded subtitles).

Unfortunately, that option has usually no effect. For it to work, you must of course have a 16:9 screen (TV or monitor). But that's not sufficient. The player must also take the "already letterboxed" flag into account. (Unfortunately, most players ignore it.) And the TV must be connected to the player with a connector that can support the "signal" sent by the player. Normally, that should work with the SCART connectors (and probably also with HDMI connectors, but I'm not sure). Finally, the TV must receive the signal, and handle it correctly. Again, many TVs ignore it. If everything works correctly, the TV should automatically change its display mode to zoom into the image, and show you the video is full screen. A good 16:9 TV must also have an option to manually change the display mode with the remote. The "automatically letterboxed" flag is just a trick to do it automatically.

If you play the DVD with a software player on a PC with a 16:9 monitor, there is no connector problem, but as far as I know, all software players are unable to handle the "already letterboxed" flag, and insist to show you the movie in 4:3.

So, the trick is probably not sufficient for you, but it has an important advantage. It's extremely easy to tick the option, and you don't have to re-encode the video. So, I suggest to try it, and burn a RW to test with your hardware.

If that works, please let me know. I'm interested in knowing what hardware support the "already letterboxed" flag.