Remove black borders from DVD without loss

[DavidGGG]

I wonder if it is possible to remove these black borders without loss while converting to DVD:



My father has this prescious video DVD created by a stand-alone DVD player/recorder which is now defunct, and of course he forgot to finalize it. I tried Nero (trial) to fix this but it crashed when I tried to finalize (or run recode or rescue) and CDroller didn't work. However, I was able to import the disc to Nero Video and save it losslessly as an MPEG. I am also able to losslessly create a new DVD from this with DVD-Lab Pro, but with these borders. Playing it back on a stand-alone player the image gets very small.

The original TV transmission was in 16:9 but as you can see it has been saved as a 4:3 video with black borders. I have this idea thay maybe, before DVDs were anamorphic, 16:9 video was saved with black borders like this, but with some setting which told any player with a 16:9 screen to simply crop the borders off?

If not, I'll have to go the long way: First convert the video with e g Handbrake to remove the borders, then while saving this to a DVD with DVD-Lab Pro probably one more conversion. Which both cause losses. And I will probably try conversion number 2 a few times to see if I can make that without losses (e g by selecting the output of the first conversion to be a format recognized by DVD) and taking into account mistakes and reruns and reading manuals etc I will be lucky if I manage to do it in a day.

If there's a lossless way to do it without any reencoding, just setting the proper flags somehow, that would be much better in many ways. But it goes beyond my grasp and I can't find any help on it.

[johns0]

Nope,gotta re-encode.just set the player to zoom instead of re-encoding.

[DavidGGG]

Thanks. This is for my fathers 70-or-so old friends though, not sure all players can zoom and that the operator knows how.

Found this now which claims to do it. Not sure they're not just tryin' to sell something though:

wondershare.com/video-editing-tips/remove-black-bars.html

Sorry you'll have to cut and paste the link, clicking it makes you go to some other page..

[usually_quiet]

Many 16:9 LCD TVs include one or two zoom functions among their picture/aspect ratio settings (there is a button for these the remote control).

[DavidGGG]

You're probably right but I bet they aren't always user-friendly enough for some.

If there's no way, and "Wondershare" doesn't work (might try it but looks suspiscious), then at least I should be able to do just one encode, right? By selecting proper width and height in the first encode, so that DVD-Lab Pro just shuffles it in without reencoding. Today it is PAL 352x576 4,1GB, maybe use 352x288 anamorphic 16:9 (using 720x576 I fear would degrade quality if to keep <~4GB). And probably can't use Handbrake since it produces mkv/mp4, should be an mpeg or some other "MPEG4 part 2" at least I bet. Haven't converted to that in decades.. maybe DVD-Lab Pro can do it.

[usually_quiet]

You're probably right but I bet they aren't always user-friendly enough for some.

If there's no way, and "Wondershare" doesn't work (might try it but looks suspiscious), then at least I should be able to do just one encode, right? By selecting proper width and height in the first encode, so that DVD-Lab Pro just shuffles it in without reencoding. Today it is PAL 352x576 4,1GB, maybe use 352x288 anamorphic 16:9 (using 720x576 I fear would degrade quality if to keep <~4GB). And probably can't use Handbrake since it produces mkv/mp4, should be an mpeg or some other "MPEG4 part 2" at least I bet. Haven't converted to that in decades.. maybe DVD-Lab Pro can do it.

I would stay away from Wondershare. I think AVStoDVD could do the conversion to 16:9. I'm trying to work out the settings. Are the black borders asymmetrical throughout as shown in your picture?

[manono]

It's already been ruined by being captured as 4:3. Converting it to a 16:9 DVD will just make it exponentially worse. And only 720x576 can be made into a 16:9 DVD so you can forget those lower resolutions.

DVD-Rebuilder can convert 4:3 DVDs to 16:9, but I don't know what it'll make of a 352x576 4:3 DVD source. Maybe it'll do it.

By selecting proper width and height in the first encode...

It has to be both cropped as well as resized. I'd say forget about it and use the zoom on the remote control or in the television's settings.

[theewizard]

take the source, convert to something loss less like mjpeg ?
then crop and increase to full dvd frame
use a two pass encode to mpeg2

then import this file to author the DVD

[usually_quiet]

It's already been ruined by being captured as 4:3. Converting it to a 16:9 DVD will just make it exponentially worse. And only 720x576 can be made into a 16:9 DVD so you can forget those lower resolutions.

DVD-Rebuilder can convert 4:3 DVDs to 16:9, but I don't know what it'll make of a 352x576 4:3 DVD source. Maybe it'll do it.

By selecting proper width and height in the first encode...

It has to be both cropped as well as resized. I'd say forget about it and use the zoom on the remote control or in the television's settings.

I managed to miss the resolution. Yes re-sizing 352x576 to 720x576 is necessary and quality will be poor (especially on single-layer/DVD 5 media). The 352x576 resolution explains why this is was recorded as letterboxed 4:3. DVD recorders can't make an anamorphic 16:9 recording at 352x576 since they too are constrained by the DVD spec.

[davejavu]

You could try your plan to crop and rencode at 352x288 as a DVD compliant video but do it with a 4:3 aspect ratio, author the resulting video as a DVD to a folder on your hard drive and then use IfoEdit to manually change the AR flag to 16:9 before burning to DVD disc.

This would be experimental as this isn't supported by the DVD specs and there is no guarantee that your burning software would accept the non-compliant files, or that all of the necessary DVD players would play the disc. I would recommend using a rewritable disc to try this unless you have lots of burn once discs you don't mind losing.

[usually_quiet]

My instructions for authoring a menuless DVD from the recovered video with AVStoDVD.

Download and install AVStoDVD. AVStoDVD should be set up for PAL when you install it.

1. If the video recovered by Nero is on DVD, use the free version of VOB2MPG to create an mpg file. If the recovered video is in file form, you can skip this step.

2. Import the video by clicking on the Add Title button (the top button in the row of buttons on the right side). If AVStoDVD asks if you want to index the file, click Yes.

3. For best quality, select DVD 9 for DVD Size. You will need to buy DVD+R DL media.

4. Select DVD Files and Folders for output.

5. Right Click on the title and select "Edit Title" from the list.
Click the Video Tab.
Uncheck Auto Video Setup
Select HCenc VBR 2-pass for Video Encoder
Select Widescreen (16:9) for the Video Aspect Ratio
Select Full D1 (720x576) for the Video Resolution

6. Click the AviSynth Tab
Uncheck Auto AViSyth Script.
Check Crop
Click the No button.
Enter 0,0,64,80 for the crop values. (This will leave a small black border at the top. It isn't possible to do a perfect crop on account of how MPEG-2 encoders work.)
Click OK.

Click "Start" to create a menuless DVD.

[DB83]

u_q

I would have cropped 72 lines top and 72 bottom.

I did this once with a mpeg2 source and had bad interlacing artifacts. Does the avisynth script or the encoding allow for this ?

[usually_quiet]

u_q

I would have cropped 72 lines top and 72 bottom.

I did this once with a mpeg2 source and had bad interlacing artifacts. Does the avisynth script or the encoding allow for this ?

I can't test the script since I don't have a suitable PAL source, but I thought I was following the rules. 72 + 72 = 144 and 64 + 80 = 144. 72 is evenly divisible by 8, but so are 64 and 80. [Edit]64 and 80 are also evenly divisible by 16.

[DB83]

I can see where you are coming from since the bottom border appears wider than the top.

I would suggest that the OP posts a short sample of the actual footage. Only then can we be certain.

[DavidGGG]

Thanks, you are all very helpful.

I suppose I can conclude that if my father had remembered to finalize the disc, the black bands would still be there. So removing them would be more than what he asked me to try to do.

Won't try Wondershare. The picture is actually a careful crop of MPC-HC windowed. Here's the whole thing:



And this is what I get if I do "save image" from within MPC-HC:



It's about 68 pixels of black at the top and about 79 at the bottom so cropping 64 and 80 resp. sounds good.

Thinking about trying AVStoDVD. Don't think the quality calls for >4½GB though, and I suppose I have to use 720x576 anamorphic with DL DVD to not degrade it.

I think I'll ask my dad, considering I now can conclude he's already getting what the DVD player would have produced if finalized I feel no major urge to improve on that, especially since we have no DL DVDs around.

[usually_quiet]

Thanks, you are all very helpful.

I suppose I can conclude that if my father had remembered to finalize the disc, the black bands would still be there. So removing them would be more than what he asked me to try to do.

Won't try Wondershare. The picture is actually a careful crop of MPC-HC windowed. Here's the whole thing:


[Attachment 34255 - Click to enlarge]

And this is what I get if I do "save image" from within MPC-HC:


[Attachment 34256 - Click to enlarge]

It's about 68 pixels of black at the top and about 79 at the bottom so cropping 64 and 80 resp. sounds good.

Thinking about trying AVStoDVD. Don't think the quality calls for >4½GB though, and I suppose I have to use 720x576 anamorphic with DL DVD to not degrade it.

I think I'll ask my dad, considering I now can conclude he's already getting what the DVD player would have produced if finalized I feel no major urge to improve on that, especially since we have no DL DVDs around.

The defects/compression artifacts in a low-resolution low-quality source eat up a lot of bitrate when re-encoded to Full D1 (720x576 or 720x480).

I found that out when I created a DVD (for the grandparents) from a truly horrible 16:9 320x180 WMV video that my nephew's university put on their website for family that could not attend commencement.