Cropping 2:35 Movie to Enlarge the Height

[VideoFanatic]

A lot of movies have an aspect ratio of 2:35. If you were to crop out the top and bottom borders you can see that they are 1920 pixels wide x 800 pixels high. Personally I don't enjoy watching those movies on a 16:9 TV as the vertical height of the movie not including the borders is quite small. So I wanted to crop some of the width so I could enlarge the height just enough so it's enjoyable to watch. So I still have some top and bottom borders but they're a lot smaller - think Back to the Future but double the size of those borders. Screenshot after the crop:
http://postimg.org/image/p1949i5uf/

Anyway, so the picture is 1920 x 800. I did the crop below. The top and bottom crop is correct as that's how much vertical space I want to crop but is my horizontal crop correct? The picture looks in proportion to me but is there an actual calculation I can do to make sure I crop the correct amount needed?

Crop(Left: 164, Top: 100, Right: 164, Bottom: 100)

I only lose total of 328 pixels width which is less than 1/4 (480 pixels) of the width. Which is acceptable to me.

[manono]

The picture looks in proportion to me but is there an actual calculation I can do to make sure I crop the correct amount needed?

No. Since it's 1:1, any cropping done, top or bottom or on the sides, keeps the aspect ratio correct. It isn't a DVD.

I only lose total of 328 pixels width which is less than 1/4 (480 pixels) of the width.

Which is also almost a quarter of the entire picture.

Which is acceptable to me.

To each his own. You could always sit closer to the television if the picture seems too small.

[VideoFanatic]

The picture looks in proportion to me but is there an actual calculation I can do to make sure I crop the correct amount needed?

No. Since it's 1:1, any cropping done, top or bottom or on the sides, keeps the aspect ratio correct. It isn't a DVD.

Yes you're correct but I'm talking about proportions - after your resize to 1920 x 1080 after the crop you'll find that everyone will look thin as they're squashed if you haven't cropped enough off the width.

So is there a calculation I can do to make sure I crop the correct amount off the width to keep everyone in the correct propotions?

[Gregg]

This entire situation with the 1:2.35 movies is total BS. Years ago we waited for the HD to come so we can get rid of the black bars in our TVs, now we have black bars again. It looks like we'll have to wait for 1:2.35 TVs so we can watch the whole screen full. This pisses me off big time.

[DB83]

Crazy. It's like going back to the past when movies were shown Pan & Scan. But

1. Vertical crop = 1080 -(1920/AR) so 2.35:1 = 1920/2.35 = 817. Round down = 816 (Not 800) = 264
2. Then Horizontal crop = 1920 - (816 *16/9) = 1920 - 1450 = 470

All assume a PAR of 1:1

[VideoFanatic]

OK thanks but as I said I don't want all the vertical borders cropped off entirely, I just wanted them to be smaller in height like in the screenshot I posted because completely removing them would require that I crop more off the sides than I care to lose. I'm happy with the height I cropped. I'm just trying to determine the correct horizontal crop number that I should use to keep the picture in proportion. So if I crop 200 pixels off the height, how many pixels should I crop off the width? Is there another calculation I can do?

[DB83]

The principle surely stands.

1080 - 200 = 880
Horizotal crop = 1920 - (880*16/9) = 1920 - 1564 = 356

[manono]

Yes you're correct but I'm talking about proportions - after your resize to 1920 x 1080 after the crop you'll find that everyone will look thin as they're squashed if you haven't cropped enough off the width.

Where did I mention resizing to 1920x1080? Yes, the television or computer monitor will scale it, adding black bars if necessary to make it 1.78:1 and 1920x1080, but nothing gets squashed. Are you noticing some sort of 'distortion' occurring when watching it? If so, what are you watching it on and using what? Maybe you have your format options (or whatever your television calls it) set incorrectly.

[manono]

It looks like we'll have to wait for 1:2.35 TVs so we can watch the whole screen full.

They already exist. But what do you do when watching 1.33:1, 1.66:1, 1.85:1, 2.76:1 and other aspect ratio movies? Buy a television for every aspect ratio ever developed so you can watch them all without black bars?

Maybe buy a projector so you can mask off the non-video parts of the screen with curtains and the like, kind of like what movie theaters do today.

[DB83]

Of course there is a much easier method if your tv supports it.

Use the zoom setting. On my Sony I can zoom in variably and have full bars or no bars and settings in between. Just tested on a Harry Potter being played right now on $ky.

[jagabo]

What's so hard to understand? The width should be 1.778 times the height to fill a 16:9 TV (16 / 9 ~= 1.778). Crop whatever you want off the top and bottom. Multiply the remaining height by 1.778. Crop the width to make it that size. So if you leave an 800 pixel height you need 800 * 1.778 ~= 1422. I'd keep it mod4 at least so 1424. 1920 - 1424 = 496 -- that's the amount you need to remove. If you want equal cropping left and right that's 248.

[VideoFanatic]

Yes you're correct but I'm talking about proportions - after your resize to 1920 x 1080 after the crop you'll find that everyone will look thin as they're squashed if you haven't cropped enough off the width.

Where did I mention resizing to 1920x1080? Yes, the television or computer monitor will scale it, adding black bars if necessary to make it 1.78:1 and 1920x1080, but nothing gets squashed. Are you noticing some sort of 'distortion' occurring when watching it? If so, what are you watching it on and using what? Maybe you have your format options (or whatever your television calls it) set incorrectly.

I made a typo. Should have said "you" instead of "your". You said the aspect ratio stays the same when you crop. All I was saying was that I know that but I was obviously referring to the proportions of the video which look squashed when you don't crop enough of the sides and then resize to 1920 x 1080.

Guys I understand and thanks for your calculations. Regarding the zoom setting, my remote doesn't have one. It has an aspect ratio button but when in 1080p you can only change from Full1 to Full2 which crops an inch. My physical media player has a zoom button and for stuff like the Pulp Fiction DVD that has borders on every side I can indeed zoom to full screen without losing any of the picture. However for the task at hand it only zooms in a huge way so that all the vertical borders are cropped which is too much.

I looked at MPC-HC and you can press a button several times to zoom to the crop you want but I can't figure out a way to create a saved profile of that zoom in the Pan & Scan menu. Does anyone know how?

Would like to get that working but it's no big deal if I can't. I'm re-encoding anyway to get rid of the grain so cropping as well isn't a problem. I hate grain on Blurays. I've used this script to get rid of the grain & flicker while retaining detail. I also encode to 10bit as that gets red of any minor banding that happens because of the grain removed and you get a 20% lower file size:

removegrain(mode=2)
QTGMC(Preset="Slow", InputType=1, EZDenoise=2.0)

[sophisticles]

Has it occured to anyone NOT to crop ANYTHING? If you pop in a Blu-ray and watch it on your tv it displays correctly, does it not? Then why bother with a re-encode and a crop and all this nonsense when you can just watch the original BD and be done with it?

[lordsmurf]

I was reading about this a while back in Broadcast Engineering.

The whole crop issues is to make you go to theatres to see it in "full glory". The home edition is crippled by black bars, or just cropped. (It went on to state that 4:3 is the natural size, though I disagree, since human vision is wider. 16x9 is more natural.)

[sophisticles]

I was reading about this a while back in Broadcast Engineering.

The whole crop issues is to make you go to theatres to see it in "full glory". The home edition is crippled by black bars, or just cropped. (It went on to state that 4:3 is the natural size, though I disagree, since human vision is wider. 16x9 is more natural.)

I personally think human vision is more square, if you look at a person standing 10 feet away you see the entire height of the person, floor, ceiling and you see the surrounding area. Human vision tends to be clearer straight ahead were our eyes focus and less clear in the peripheral.

[jagabo]

Has it occured to anyone NOT to crop ANYTHING?

Of course. I always watch the original AR. But I don't care what the OP does.

[Cornucopia]

Except it's not. A single eye's view is close to ~4:3*, but both eyes together give you roughly over 2:1 in FOV. And because of our eye's saccadian movements, our in-focus area is larger than at first glance (pun intended). So widescreen is very natural.

Scott

*it would be square subtended by the circle of the eye, but FOV is further restricted by the eye socket.

[jagabo]

Your FOV is irrelevant unless your nose is on the screen.

[DB83]

Has it occured to anyone NOT to crop ANYTHING? If you pop in a Blu-ray and watch it on your tv it displays correctly, does it not? Then why bother with a re-encode and a crop and all this nonsense when you can just watch the original BD and be done with it?

Well the OP has stated that he does not like watching certain films as the director intended them to be seen.

That's his prerogative. Personally, and I suspect that most agree, I take the opposite view. In fact back in the days of pan and scan especially on tv you got crazy situations. One that still haunts me was a western (forget its name) with a scene in a court room. The scan (fixed) was at centre with the actors on extreme left and right. So one heard them but could not see them.

Many films I have waited years to see properly are now appearing. My eyesight is certainly not the best but I can still focus on the image and, mentally, ignore the bars.

[VideoFanatic]

Can anyone help with this? I looked at MPC-HC and you can press a button several times to zoom to the crop you want but I can't figure out a way to create a saved profile of that zoom in the Pan & Scan menu. Does anyone know how?

[johnmeyer]

There is some strange thinking in this thread.

Movies are made in many different aspect ratios, and this has been true since the early 50's when "Hollywood" tried to fight off competition from the new home toy, television, by providing a different experience in the theater. This involved bigger and wider screens, something TV wouldn't be able to provide for another fifty years.

Dozens of different scheme were introduced, including the three-camera Cinerama which was 2.6:1. I'm old enough to have seen this in theaters back in the 1950s, and it required a special curved screen to display properly. Many other wide-screen formats were introduced. Read this if you want more information:

Movie Aspect Ratios

These days, movie theaters only have one screen, and so when a movie having a different aspect ratio than the previous movie is screened, guess what? They crop it! You may not be aware of this because it is done by adjusting the side-curtains or top and bottom bezels on the screen in the theater. I still remember, when wide-screen was new, the coming attractions and newsreels (yes, I remember newsreels), were shot in 4:3, would be shown with the side curtains partially drawn. Then when the main attraction started, the curtains would open. It was actually a neat effect, and sometimes the audience would applaud.

The "solution" for your home television, if such a thing is even needed, would be to have a movable bezel on your TV screen so you wouldn't see the black bars on the screen itself. Obviously this doesn't do a darn thing, but it might make you feel better about something that actually is totally normal, and doesn't need fixing.

Or, if you don't feel you are getting your money's worth when the screen isn't completely filled up, edge-to-edge, then do what has already been suggested (and the OP has apparently discovered): use the zoom function on your TV monitor. The picture will probably be stretched, and it won't look as sharp, but you can sleep well because you know that all of the pixels on your expensive TV are actually being used.

[DB83]

Can anyone help with this? I looked at MPC-HC and you can press a button several times to zoom to the crop you want but I can't figure out a way to create a saved profile of that zoom in the Pan & Scan menu. Does anyone know how?

I do not think you can set that.

And if you could it would be a pretty bad idea (hence why you can not) since all vids would then playback at the zoomed level not just the ones you wanted.

[TimA-C]

. . . In fact back in the days of pan and scan especially on tv you got crazy situations. One that still haunts me was a western (forget its name) with a scene in a court room. The scan (fixed) was at centre with the actors on extreme left and right. So one heard them but could not see them.

There was also the "Classic" Lawrence of Arabia pan and scan debacle. In one scene Lawrence and (I think) Ali (Peter O'Toole and Omar Sharif) were sitting opposite each other - side on to the camera - over a table with (from memory) a water carafe on it. The BBC, in it's infinite wisdom, left it so that for most of the scene all we saw was the table, the carafe, and the tips of the two stars' noses! I somehow don't think that's how David Lean planned for that scene to be seen! The other classic was Ch4 showing Seven Brides for Seven Brothers and in some of the dance sequences there were often only five brothers visible at any one time! The other odd one that sticks in my memory was the BBC (I think) showing 2001: A Space Odyssey in widescreen but they filled the black bars top and bottom with stars for the entire film - it sort of looked OK(ish) during the scenes set in Space but looked really stupid when the scenes weren't set in Space . . . but sort of . . . looked . . . kinda like they . . . were?

Leave the video as it is. Each shot was framed by the Director who is (hopefully) better at directing than either you or me (with some exceptions, Obviously!) Why on Earth would anyone want to chop off nearly a quarter of the picture? Just leave it alone and enjoy the film as it was meant to be seen.

[johnmeyer]

The other classic was Ch4 showing Seven Brides for Seven Brothers and in some of the dance sequences there were often only five brothers visible at any one time!

There have been several great featurettes showing the evils of cropping films. The one that TCM runs, includes several of the scenes you mention. Here is a link to a short version of that featurette:

Turner Classic Movies: Letterbox

This was produced a long time ago, when most of us were still watching on SD 4:3 CRT TV sets, but the same issues still apply to re-cropping super-wide aspect ratios back down to the 16:9 aspect of most modern TV sets.

[TimA-C]

Thanks John, I hadn't seen that before. Nice to know I'm in good company for a change!

[manono]

When you mentioned both Lawrence Of Arabia and Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, I thought you had seen it. And don't forget the chariot race in the 1959 2.66:1 Ben Hur.

[TimA-C]

I don't remember ever seeing Ben Hur panned and scanned on TV. I do vaguely remember seeing it at the Cinema when I was quite small. I think it stuck in my head as it's one of only two films that I remember seeing at the Cinema that had an interval part way through, the other being the Rex Harrison version of Doctor Dolittle. It wasn't until I was quite a bit older that I came to appreciate Ben Hur as the Classic it is.

I've been thinking about this topic since my earlier post and realised that another example where cropping is Evil is the digitally remastered Star Trek - The Original Series where the episodes have been cropped top and bottom to fill a 16:9 TV screen. (They've also had all the model and "Funky" special effects shots recreated in pretty glorious CG) I love the fact that the picture is far better than I've ever seen before, and that the shots out in space and on the Main Viewer look fantastic, and, best of all, no black bars at the sides on my TV! The trouble is that I HATE a lot of the now awkwardly framed scenes where one character is standing (often Spock) and talking to one or more sitting characters and you either get the top of Spock's head chopped off (and I'm not just talking about the "Spock's Brain" episode where it "literally" is chopped off and his Brain stolen - don't worry, he gets better!) or Chekov's or Sulu's chin chopped off. They've been running the digitally remastered Star Trek - The Next Generation on the Sci-fi channel (It's not Syfy you moronic TV Execs! That name just makes your once pretty decent TV channel sound like a bathroom cleaner!) and it's kept the original 4:3 aspect ratio and, in my ever so humble opinion, is much the better for it.

[DB83]

^^ Yes. Another of my pet-hates is cropping of 4:3 to 16:9. Makes one afraid to purchase some classic movies on Blu Ray.

Yet equally bad when you see some classic 4:3 tv on certain channels which has been stretched to fit 16:9 screens

[Gregg]

I looked at MPC-HC and you can press a button several times to zoom to the crop you want but...

You can do that but then a 1080p video becomes 720p.
In fact releasing 1:2.35 HD movies is cheating because now the screen (minus the black bars) is only 75% full and if you use the MPC-HC way to crop your full HD TV turns into a 720p TV. We've been all scammed

[johnmeyer]

Some of the 16:9 versions of old TV shows have less cropping than you might expect. This is because most of these TV shows were shot on 35mm film, and they were framed for 4:3, but the actual content on the film was wider than that (I've seen the term "16:9 safe" used to describe how these shows were shot). Those right/left edges were cropped for broadcast. The newer HD widescreen versions of some of these shows have been taken from the original film, with that previously un-seen footage now included.

This post, in another forum, illustrates what happens. Note the white edges in the original 4:3 version, and how the 16:9 version includes "new" image content in those areas.

Seinfeld 4:3 vs. 16:9

However, as you can also see, in the new 16:9 version, some material is lost at the bottom of this particular frame because the original 35mm "academy aspect ratio" is not as wide as 16:9.

My general sense of things is that this vertical crop would do less "violence" to the story and the art of the original than the horizontal cropping done when going from widescreen back to 4:3, but I'm sure someone could make a little featurette, like the one I linked to in my last post, showing the problems you get when using this "trick" to get HD widescreen from filmed 4:3 TV shows.