Encode 16:9 in 4:3 with letterboxing? Is this possible?

General questions or discussion about HandBrake, Video and/or audio transcoding, trends etc.
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brianlees
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Encode 16:9 in 4:3 with letterboxing? Is this possible?

Post by brianlees »

I need to encode a 16:9 dvd into 4:3 with letterboxing. Is this possible with Handbrake? I don't think it is. I searched the forums and found nothing and I can't find an option in the interface to add "whitespace" - or, in this case, blackspace.

Thanks

Brian
epstewart
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Re: Encode 16:9 in 4:3 with letterboxing? Is this possible?

Post by epstewart »

brianlees wrote:I need to encode a 16:9 dvd into 4:3 with letterboxing. Is this possible with Handbrake? I don't think it is. I searched the forums and found nothing and I can't find an option in the interface to add "whitespace" - or, in this case, blackspace.
Try checking "Keep Aspect Ratio" (but not "Anamorphic (PAR)") in Picture Settings, a button you can find under the Video tab. That will letterbox your 16:9 image into a 4:3 frame, with bars above and below the image.
hawkman
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Post by hawkman »

I'm afraid it won't add black bars. HB will let you preserve any existing bars, but not add new ones - it's not exactly a common request :)

Why do you want to add them in the first place?
brianlees
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Post by brianlees »

I know, I know...it sounds stupid. But, I need to encode a corporate video as an 4:3 AVI and send it to a vendor who will then encode it into Flash for an online presentation they are hosting for us.

So, I'm kinda stuck and have no budget really to do this. I was hoping that trusty Handbrake would do it, but it looks like it can't.

I know this next question falls out of the scope of these boards, but maybe someone can off a suggestion - Mac or PC - that might be able to do it. I could encode it in handbrake as something that another app might be able to adjust.

Thanks

Brian
MichaelLAX

Post by MichaelLAX »

brainless wrote:I know this next question falls out of the scope of these boards, but maybe someone can off a suggestion - Mac or PC - that might be able to do it. I could encode it in handbrake as something that another app might be able to adjust.
If it does not have macrovision encoding (copy protection) connect a dvd player that is set to output to a 4:3 television to a dvd recorder, and record in realtime (presumably at the SP or XP encoding, with S-Video cables for best quality). Then use HandBrake to transcode.
PuzZLeR
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Post by PuzZLeR »

I would have actually recommended the same thing as MichaelLax - recapturing the source all over agin under different conditions (with of course, a quality hit).

Another solution would be editing (if you can rip this to straight MPEG-2). Not that we don't want to help you, but this is not really an encoding issue.

But I can suggest that on a PC you can use AVISynth. It's a bit of a learning curve, but very powerful and CAN do exactly that. I'm sure on some forums some folks would have a script ready for you.

You can even do something like that in VideoStudio if you know what you're doing. But VideoStudio is not free.

I understand what you want to do and it's not a stupid request. You simply want to fit 16:9 content onto a 4:3 canvas for "fit" reasons. I personally don't know how to do it without experimenting a bit first, but editing tools will certainly fulfill your needs in this case - either by resizing or canvassing/cropping/matting/letterboxing/border/etc filters.
sdm
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Post by sdm »

mpeg streamclip with negative cropping
- i.e a negative value for top and bottom crop values.
'-56' will work might be the right value.
just tried it to make a 640x368 become 640x480 with black bars top an bottom.

--sdm.
Ralph The Magician
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Post by Ralph The Magician »

You can actually letterbox using the export function in QuickTime. At least for MPEG-4.
hawkman
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Post by hawkman »

Yeah, but that'll mean a reencoding of the video, right?
Ralph The Magician
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Post by Ralph The Magician »

hawkman wrote:Yeah, but that'll mean a reencoding of the video, right?
Aye. You could just leave yourself a little headroom. You'd only have to re-encode the video track, as you can just set the audio track to "pass through".
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