Movie crop settings (1 Viewer)

dubstar

Portal Pro
October 23, 2006
152
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I have searched all over the forum and can't find what i need so please excuse me if you have read this a thousand times before.

I have a issue when watching my movies stored on my hdd. Thay have all been ripped from dvds using the same software and settings however some are in different formats to others. Therefore what i have is some films in full screen and some with huge bars across the top and bottom.

Its really quite annoying when i have a 16:9 capable tv with cropped movies playing on it!!

if this can be resolved i would be very happy indeed. As usual keep up all the great work, and all the best for the new year.
 

Jetboy

Portal Pro
April 15, 2005
187
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Stockholm
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S on your keyboard (red button on MCE remote (europe)) lets you switch zoom and aspect ratio modes. You also get that choice from the context menu (F9).
 

dubstar

Portal Pro
October 23, 2006
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I use the option to alter the aspect ratio and i usally have it set to stretch for best results. How ever even then i am still left with black bars on some films. I am wondering if i can get rid of them when ripping??

What I have realised is that the same black bars are present when the dvd plays and there is no way tio get rid of it them, so maybe there is another process that i can perform on the ripped files to remove the black bars as they seem to be part of the video!?!?!?

If anyone has any suggestions i would be greatful.
 

Noelix

Portal Pro
February 18, 2006
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Salt Lake City, UT
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My television has the option to change the aspect ratio to solve that, so it stretches wide but cuts off the top and bottom. Maybe yours does?
 

Jetboy

Portal Pro
April 15, 2005
187
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Stockholm
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What I have realised is that the same black bars are present when the dvd plays and there is no way tio get rid of it them, so maybe there is another process that i can perform on the ripped files to remove the black bars as they seem to be part of the video!?!?!?
Ok, now I see what you're talking about. Most hollywood movies are made using a format that is wider than 16:9. In order to fit that on a 16:9 display they have to letterbox the video, putting black bars on top and bottom. If you want to get rid of the letterboxing, you'll have to stretch the image and everyone will look really tall and skinny. I don't think there is a setting for that in MP, but Ziphnor's auto-zoom (under development) might help you. Check it out!
 

dubstar

Portal Pro
October 23, 2006
152
1
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United Kingdom United Kingdom
Has anyone found a way to solve this problem?

I've been messing about with the autocropper and it does't seem to work (yes I checked the 'use in my videos' box)

This is now the only thing that is a problem with my set up. I ran some videos through media coder to crop them and they are fine but they take a couple of hours each!!

Can anyone recommend a solution?
 

Hojou

Portal Pro
January 10, 2007
69
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excuse me for butting in, but are you sure those black bars aren't ment to be there - you only have a "wide screen tv" not a "theather-sized-wide tv" ? Someone already mentioned this before, but the black bars (even on wide-screen tv's) are there to keep the picture in correct aspect ratio. If you wanted to fill out the TV totally the picture would get stretched - making it all look wrong - just as wrong as playing back a widescreen signal on a normal (non-wide) 4:3 TV...

Or are we missing a point here?

EDIT: the reason you want to remove them for ripping is that you don't want to spend space compressing it? Luckily most compression logics spend very little space compressing stuff like black bars.
 

dubstar

Portal Pro
October 23, 2006
152
1
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United Kingdom United Kingdom
Or are we missing a point here?

The reason i'm so keen on getting it sorted is because i had this problem in windows mce until i used the nvidia decoder which sorted the probem.

It doen't make sence that i have to watch a film on only half of the screen when its almost the correct aspect ratio any way!!!

If it worked in mce i'm sure it will work in media portal!
 

Hojou

Portal Pro
January 10, 2007
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I guess you tried using the nvidia codex for MP as well? There is a setting for recording and one for viewing directly afaik.

When playing back a DVD any black bars should be because the movie was recorded in a wider than widescreen tv. However if you so wish, it ought to be possible to remove these and probably suffer a wrong aspect ratio.
When watching a TV signal the black bars might be part of the full signal if the movie is sent in letterbox signal. In this case i fully agree the letterbox should expand both up and out (height and width) to your widescreen. Some movies would fill the entire tv and some would still have black bars to maintain correct aspect ratio.

I'm not sure if what you say is either
a) you don't care if the aspect ratio is wrong - you'd rather have the picture stretched and messed up aspect ratio than having black bars.
or
b) the aspect ratio IS wrong because the black bars are still there.

If it's b - then it must be a wrong setting somewhere or perhaps a bug you found? Could you take a picture of your entire tvset with a digital camera and post it here?
It if's a - then you need some zoom feature to crop away the black bars. I really don't recall MCE having this though?
 

dubstar

Portal Pro
October 23, 2006
152
1
Home Country
United Kingdom United Kingdom
Ok I have attached 2 pics, one screen shot and on very poor quality photo.

Its clear to see why i am frustrated, however your earlier posts suggest that there is nothing I can do!!

Let me know what you think.
 

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