Remove black bars from dvd files?

caister · 30 Jul 2007 at 21:06

Hi ive spent the last week putting my dvds onto my pc so they are easier to access and safe from damage.

However Ive noticed that most if not all come with a black bar at the top and bottom of the picture. Is it possible to edit this out while still keeping the files in a lossless vob format?

Thanks

squiffy · 30 Jul 2007 at 21:07

Widescreen films greater than 1:85 are supposed to have borders on the top and bottom.

If you zoom into the picture (keeping OAR) you lose a considerble amount of left/right picture information.

Energize · 30 Jul 2007 at 21:27

The black bars aren't part of the dvd video file they are just parts of the screen that aren't filled. Beause widescreen tvs are 16:9 (1.78:1) anything like 1.85:1 or 2.35:1 will have black bars, in the media player options you can tell it to crop the video which will cause you to lose some video from the sides of the image, pan & scan which will adjust the video so that only the unimportant part of the video will be missing, or you can tell it to stretch the video, that way you won't lose any of the video but 2.35:1 video will look distorted.

Generally though the important stuff is in the middle of the screen. God knows why movies are made in the 2.35:1 ratio when everyones tv is 16:9. If they weren't so incompetent they would be able to achieve a good look using 16:9.

caister · 30 Jul 2007 at 21:47

Thanks for the replys I know they are supposed to have black bars incorporated into the movie so that it fits a 16:9 screen I just thought that cropping the bars off would save a little if any space on my HDD as well as .

The other thing is that because my monitor is not true 16:9 I get 2 black bars one from the movie and one from media center and what really annoys me is that the bars are different shades of black!!

Hope that makes sense. Cheers

Logan09 · 30 Jul 2007 at 23:40

caister said:
Thanks for the replys I know they are supposed to have black bars incorporated into the movie so that it fits a 16:9 screen I just thought that cropping the bars off would save a little if any space on my HDD as well as .

The other thing is that because my monitor is not true 16:9 I get 2 black bars one from the movie and one from media center and what really annoys me is that the bars are different shades of black!!

Hope that makes sense. Cheers

The reason you get 2 black bars is one is just blank space where the video does not fill the screen, and the second is either encoded into the video file or, more likely, put there by your media player in an attempt to preserve the aspect ratio. If you have your brightness set right then you should not be able to distinguish between the 2. Try turning your brightness down until the 2 black bars look like one.

Impy77 · 31 Jul 2007 at 07:35

Energize said:
Generally though the important stuff is in the middle of the screen. God knows why movies are made in the 2.35:1 ratio when everyones tv is 16:9. If they weren't so incompetent they would be able to achieve a good look using 16:9.

LMAO. Films have been made in 2.35:1 for several decades before Widescreen TVs were even available.... maybe you should be calling the TV manufacturers 'incompetent' for not making TVs in that ratio

Memphis · 31 Jul 2007 at 10:25

Impy77 said:
LMAO. Films have been made in 2.35:1 for several decades before Widescreen TVs were even available.... maybe you should be calling the TV manufacturers 'incompetent' for not making TVs in that ratio

Just ignore Energize, it's best for everyone.

caister · 31 Jul 2007 at 18:38

ah well i wont bother trying to edit the bars out then. What i do really want to know is how to upscale in vista mce as I'm yet to find anyone who has managed it yet.

Clarkey · 31 Jul 2007 at 18:52

it will upscale by default, I presume you mean better upscaling, the likes of ffdshow?

oh and yes, energizes' post is total rubbish.

Energize · 31 Jul 2007 at 19:01

Impy77 said:
LMAO. Films have been made in 2.35:1 for several decades before Widescreen TVs were even available.... maybe you should be calling the TV manufacturers 'incompetent' for not making TVs in that ratio

Human eyesight is nowhere near that ratio and tv programs aren't broadcast in 2.35:1 either so why would tv manufacturers make tvs in that ratio? I guess there are even aspect ratio fanboys now.

Try to keep on topic.

caister · 31 Jul 2007 at 19:19

Clarkey said:
it will upscale by default, I presume you mean better upscaling, the likes of ffdshow?

Yeah I mean better upscaling such as what ffdshow provides. Is there any similar software which is vista compatible?

caister · 31 Jul 2007 at 20:08

Well back to my original problem of the black bars being different colours since I installed the new nvidia drivers they appear exactly the same now.

squiffy · 31 Jul 2007 at 20:10

ffdshow seems to work in vista.

caister · 31 Jul 2007 at 20:21

squiffy said:
ffdshow seems to work in vista.

Try getting it to upscale a dvd in mce though. If you can manage that i want your secret!!!

squiffy · 31 Jul 2007 at 20:25

Dunno if it's the same, but try enabling raw- all supported in video codecs menu

Otherwise it won't scale mpeg-II video from DVD's (got to do this to enable scaling in DVD's with Theatretek, with FFDSHOW post-processing/scaling)

caister · 31 Jul 2007 at 21:57

squiffy said:
Dunno if it's the same, but try enabling raw- all supported in video codecs menu

Otherwise it won't scale mpeg-II video from DVD's (got to do this to enable scaling in DVD's with Theatretek, with FFDSHOW post-processing/scaling)

Yeah ive tried that already doesn't seem to work in mce for some reason

chaparral · 31 Jul 2007 at 22:41

Energize said:
I guess there are even aspect ratio fanboys now.

There sure is.......They go crazy for the 2.35:1 ratio

(I myself hate that ratio because of the big black bars...)