Converting 720p to 480p (Getting rid of black bars on the side of 720p)

[fri3ndlygiant]

Hey guys, so I have some videos that were recorded in 720p with a screen recorder awhile ago, but the actual video I was screen recording was a 480p video that had an aspect ratio of 4:3 not 16:9. Anyways, I was wondering if there was a way to convert these videos so that it was just a normal 480p video without the black bars on the side so that the file size would be a lot smaller.

THANKS!

[manono]

Encoded for the same quality the size won't be a whole lot smaller as static black takes next to no bits to encode. However, to remove them just crop them away. You can do that within some programs. Others use AviSynth or VDub for cropping.

...but the actual video I was screen recording was a 480p video that had an aspect ratio of 4:3 not 16:9.

That doesn't make much sense. Say, for example, your 'source' video is 1280x720. You crop away the black on the sides leaving 960x720. That's still a 720p video. If you like, you can then resize to 640x480 making it a real 480p video.

Unless I've misunderstood what you've written. Or you didn't explain clearly.

[fri3ndlygiant]

Alright thanks for the quick response. I have a lot of videos, and if the file size won't change much then I am going to just leave it. Thanks anyways

[manono]

...and if the file size won't change much then I am going to just leave it. Thanks anyways

I didn't say that. It's just that the black 'pillar bars' take up a very small percentage of the bits available for the encode. You can make your videos as small as you like by adjusting the bitrate downwards as compared to that of the originals. And if you're willing to both crop and then resize to 640x480, you can get pretty decent quality (maybe not as sharp as the source) at a much smaller size.

[theewizard]

i would them alone 'as is'
but practice with the screen recorder and learn to set the recorded window sized to the video stream
so your next recordings, will be recorded without any excess black screen area

[Adithya]

First you have to check how much you should crop

1st way FFmpeg

First you should know about FFMpeg so if you don't first download it place it in exactly the folder where your video is and then press shift and right click then select open command window here, and in that you could type in these commands.

For that run this command with ffmpeg

ffmpeg -y -i yourvideo -vf cropdetect -f mp4 NUL

then Ctrl+c it. go a bit up there you can see the resolution you should crop with so with that in mind do the next command

ffmpeg -i yourvideo -vf crop="whatever you got from the previous command",scale=-1:480 -acodec copy -crf 18 out.mp4




You should not type what you see in this screenshot but what appears in yours.

Also if your video starts from a black, dark scene you should try this command

ffmpeg -y -i yourvideo -ss 00:00:10 -vf cropdetect -f mp4 NUL (assuming that all gets brightened up from 10 seconds into the video)

Can you please post a sample of that video maybe 5-10 seconds then maybe i could give you a proper command with ffmpeg

2nd way Handbrake

Import your video into handbrake and it automatically do the cropping for you