Crop and Compress vs Std Compress

[drafty]

Hi,
has anyone got any information regarding cropping and compressing data rather than just compressing the entire video frame.
Question: If you crop the upper and lower black bands from the video source do you get a higher subsequent bitrate due to the encoder not encoding these bands?
I know the resulting video still has to have bands but these I guess would be regenerated by the software.
Maybe when compressing the Aspect ratio settings take this into account already and just compress between the black bands...
thoughts anybody?

Regards,
Drafty

[bb]

Originally posted by drafty
Hi,
has anyone got any information regarding cropping and compressing data rather than just compressing the entire video frame.
Question: If you crop the upper and lower black bands from the video source do you get a higher subsequent bitrate due to the encoder not encoding these bands?
It's more a question of compatibility with standalone players. For DVD, SVCD, and VCD you have to use fixed resolutions, thus you are forced to encode with black bars.
If you encode without the black bars you don't get a higher bitrate (that one you select), but you get a better quality at the same bitrate. The reason is not the black bars themselves, but the sharp edge between the black bars and the actual video area. So if you crop, make sure you don't leave a single line of black, else you won't gain much.
I know the resulting video still has to have bands but these I guess would be regenerated by the software.
Maybe when compressing the Aspect ratio settings take this into account already and just compress between the black bands...
thoughts anybody?

Regards,
Drafty
There are players that can add the black bars, mostly software players, but only a few standalones.
Encoders encode what they get fed in. If the frames are with black bars included, they will be encoded.

bb

[drafty]

Thanks for the response.