Alternative to VirtualDub. Adding Black Borders.

[magicky]

I'm having trouble adding black borders to the edges of an avi video I'm working with. VirtualDub 1.7.7 won't open the video file, and I don't know what else I can do at this point. Are there any other programs I can use to alter my video and add black borders? Any assistance that can be offered would be most appreciated. Thank you for your time.

[themostestultimategenius]

addborders(left,top,right,bottom)

[Placio74]

You can use Avisynth script.
Some as above, but...
http://avisynth.org/mediawiki/DirectShowSource
http://avisynth.org/mediawiki/AddBorders

... VirtualDub 1.7.7 won't open the video file, and I don't know what else I can do at this point. ...
More info, please.
Not supported container?
Missing required codec?

Other...
You can try Avidemux (look at filters - Add black borders) instead VirtualDub.

[magicky]

Hey! I downloaded avidemux and I was successful in adding the black borders, thank you so much. But now I'm having a problem putting the video I added borders to into a DVD for my home theater. I'm using Nero 8 Ultra, and the black borders never show up in the previews before I burn the disc. I really don't want to burn unless I'm going to be sure it'll work, because I really don't want this video to be overscanned. I'll provide whatever information I can if it'll help, but I warn you, I'm rather ignorant of what everthing means. Is there another program I should be using to make my video?

[Leak]

I really don't want to burn unless I'm going to be sure it'll work, because I really don't want this video to be overscanned.
Now, I don't know Nero 8, and after seeing what they turned it into after Version 5 which was the last I've used I really don't want to know, but I hope it can still write a disc image instead of burning directly to a DVD.

If so, just take a few minutes of your video and have it make a DVD image of those, then mount the image with Daemon Tools or some other virtual drive program, play it and you'll instantly see whether it worked live and in colour without having wasted a DVD in the process... :)

Just my 0.02 EYPO...

np: Tortoise - Why We Fight (A Lazarus Taxon (Disc 2))

[20-40]

I use this Asyther template (which is slightly modified avisynth script which can be easly turned into "pure" .avs.)

#ASYNTHER AVI 25 fps for DVD
[AVISource("%f")]
AddBorders(0,88,0,88)
[TextSub("%f.srt")] # song name, artist and lyrics
AssumeFPS(25,true)
MDeblock()
Undot()
RainbowKiller()
LanczosResize(704,576)
ConvertToYUY2()
PeachSmoother(NoiseReduction=45,Stability=15,Spatial=70,NoiseLevel=4.8,Baseline=3.2)
Monitorfilter()

as you can see, I add borders and resize the clip, then frameserve this avisynth script in Cinemacraft Encoder choosing the 4/3 aspect ratio.
Prior to that, I fed such avs script in VirtualDub, choose "Full processing mode", add "Filters"-"resize"-"Lanczos" 704x576 just to check script - especially in cases where I encode to SVCD 480x576 size (by changing Lanczos in avs).
This produce 4:3 AR mpeg2 and after authoring I check VIDEO_TS folder by playing it in PowerDVD (DVD file on HD drive).
Then - I burn it with Nero. Or to ISO with DVDClassic_0.91.2 and burn this image later on after mounting it with Daemon tools.

All my problems with "predicting" pixel-sizes and aspect ratios are gone since I've decided to "hardcode" 4/3 AR and my huge collection of captured music video clips is playable both on PC and my standalone.

[magicky]

Alright, the problem with my black borders in Nero 8 was my own error when using avidemux to re-do my video files (I accidently forgot to use filters, therefore, no black borders showed up, but I finally figured it out!). I'm so thankful to all of you for helping me out with this :thanks:. I'm currently using this to edit even more video files, and now I'm finding that the videos I'm currently working on are of totally different dimensions than what I was working with when I first posted this question. I'll post the dimensions of the video when I get home (I'm posting this comment from my office, will be home in a couple hours). I'm thinking that it might be best to add enough in black borders to make it fit 4:3 aspect ration, but then again, 16:9 might be better suited because the video file itself is fairly wide...but I really don't know what I'm doing at this point.