Edit black bars in DVD movie

[CoNS]

I have a DVD (main movie only, no menus) with those standard black "letterbox" bars at the top and bottom of the picture. In the black area at the top, there's a TV station logo throughout the movie, and in the bottom black area there're hardcoded subtitles. I would like to remove both, but how?

I've been thinking about two different solutions: 1) crop the video, to leave out the black areas, or 2) apply empty, solid black bars on top of the existing black bars with the logo and subs.

However, I don't know how to actually do this editing of the DVD video. Notice that I would like to leave the video for the movie itself untouched, and I would like to end up with a fully working DVD (or at least an .m2v that I can use for re-authoring my DVD). Can anyone help?

I tried to get solution #1 to work by demuxing the video stream to .m2v and opening it in VirtualDubMod. I could set the cropping coordinates (using the null filter), but when I tried to save the file I could only save to .avi, .ogm or .mkv formats? Also, by cropping the video to a different resolution I'm not sure if I'd be able to use it for a compliant DVD?

I've spent the last hours searching this forum, and also googling for a solution, without luck :(

[Adub]

Well, I know of one way. You could create a d2v with DGIndex or the main movie. Then use avisynth with Autocrop to frameserve it. Then open the avisynth file with HC encoder or Tmpgenc or you favorite encoder.

Your script should look something like this:DGDecode_Mpeg2source("Location of your source")
AutoCrop(0)
Lanczosresize(720,480)

#Whatever filters you want to run, if any.

[goonix]

What about a forced subpicture stream of 2 black bars overlaying the original black bars?
This way you don't need to reencode the movie and the quality is untouched.
As drawback you can't add an additional text subpicture stream.
But to enable the subtitles, you can switch to another subpicture stream, where only the first black bar is covered and the hardcoded subtitle becomes visible.

goonix

[Adub]

forced subpicture stream of 2 black bars overlaying the original black bars

How would you do this? I am curious.

[r0lZ]

CoNS, if you have a 16:9 TV set, it should sufficient to change the display mode of your main movie. Turn on the "Already letterboxed" checkbox in domain streams attributes. Your TV should switch to 16:9 letterboxed automatically. Of course, on a 4:3 TV, it's useless.

@goonix: Indeed, it's a good idea!

@Merlin7777: You can use PgcEdit's menu editor to create one black subpic rectangle easily, with pseudo-BOV highlights. However, to be able to hide the two bars at the same time, it is necessary to display 2 buttons at the same time, and that's not possible. Therefore, you must create one subpic stream with two black bars, and mux it. I don't know which tool is best suited to do that, but any good authoring program should be OK.

[CoNS]

Thanks for the help, guys!

@goonix: Great idea! I actually managed to do it, and it works! I did it this way:

1. Saved a screenshot of the movie in PgcEdit's Preview window, to .bmp format.
2. Edited the .bmp file in a graphic editing program so that it got two black bars (at the top and bottom), and a one-coloured area in the middle where the picture is.
3. Created a .srt file with one long time code (covering the entire movie) and using the bitmap image in the .srt code
4. Created a .sup using good ol'e Srt2Sup, which was the only app I knew of that could import the .srt + .bmp to create a .sup
5. Demuxed the main movie with PgcDemux, and muxed it with MuxMan, including the new .sup file.
6. Edited the outputted DVD with DVDSubEdit to change normal start to forced and to correct colours and transparency.

Only trouble is that the subpic is only displayed (forced) at the beginning of the movie. If I skip to the next chapter or go fast forward in the movie, the subpic disappears (on both my standalone and in my software player).

EDIT: Another problem is that the subpic disappears by itself after around 12 minutes. For future reference, this is what jeanl replied in a mail when I asked him about it:

The delay in a SPU is coded as a short, so the max value is 65538, which corresponds to is 65538 * 1024 / 90000 s, or 745s or a bit more than 12mn... I suppose that's what you're seeing. You'll just have to add another one every 11m!

@Merlin7777: Unfortunately I have never had the time to look into DGIndex and AviSynth. I know they are very powerful tools, but they seem very complex, too. So for now I'm keeping your idea in the back of my head - to use if everything else fails! Thanks for the suggestions, though! :)

@r0lZ: Gosh, that would have saved me many hours of trying to figure out how to solve it!!! Now, I've checked the "Source Picture Letterboxed" option in the domain stream attributes in PgcEdit. It doesn't seem to a difference in my software player, but I'll try to burn to a DVDRW and test in my Sony standalone, on my 16:9 TV as you said. BTW, how come the domain stream attributes can no longer be edited via the PGC Editor in PgcEdit?

[bigotti5]

Only trouble is that the subpic is only displayed (forced) at the beginning of the movie.

You have to create more than one subpicture with the same bitmap image

00:00:00:00 - 00:00:02:00 bars.bmp
00:00:02:01 - 00:00:04:00 bars.bmp
00:00:04:01 - 00:00:06:00 bars.bmp
00:00:06:01 - 00:00:08:00 bars.bmp
...

[CoNS]

Yeah, I had that idea, too. Only, I was too lazy to add the lines manually.

Is there a subtitle tool that can automatically add the lines for me in that special .srt bitmap format? Or break down the one subtitle line I have with the long time code, into xxx lines with shorter time codes?

[r0lZ]

@r0lZ: Gosh, that would have saved me many hours of trying to figure out how to solve it!!! Now, I've checked the "Source Picture Letterboxed" option in the domain stream attributes in PgcEdit. It doesn't seem to a difference in my software player, but I'll try to burn to a DVDRW and test in my Sony standalone, on my 16:9 TV as you said.
Unfortunately, my Sony ignores this flag. And to work properly, your player must be connected to your TV with the right cable. In Europe, a SCART cable is OK, if your player sends the right signal.

BTW, how come the domain stream attributes can no longer be edited via the PGC Editor in PgcEdit?
Well, the Domain Stream Attributes has nothing to do with the PGCs, as it is a standalone table, global to the whole domain. I have added the DSA button in the PGC editor for the user convenience, but it caused some trouble. For example, if you click on OK, the modified attributes are definitively saved. However, all other sub-editors called from the PGC Editor are ignored if the user cancels the PGC Editor. Also, the tooltips of the audio and subpic stream assignments buttons of the PGC Editor were not updated after a call to the DSA from within the PGC Editor.
In this version, I have added the "Delete" checkboxes in Domain Stream Attributes, but that was totally incompatible with the PGC Editor. So, I have finally decided to leave it, but read-only.

[mpucoder]

You could just use the .sst format (http://www.mpucoder.com/Muxman/mxp/sst.html), this can set the subs to forced, and use just one .bmp - plus MuxMan can read it, so no need to srt2sup, mux, and edit.

[bigotti5]

You could just use the .sst format, this can set the subs to forced, and use just one .bmp - plus MuxMan can read it, so no need to srt2sup, mux, and edit.

would not help - chapter skip and FF/FR will result in loosing sub

[laserfan]

@goonix: Great idea! I actually managed to do it, and it works!Wow, you figured all that out (making a subpic and getting it to hide the bad stuff). Sometimes the creativity of people here to solve problems just amazes me!


Very :cool:!

[CoNS]

Unfortunately, my Sony ignores this flag. And to work properly, your player must be connected to your TV with the right cable. In Europe, a SCART cable is OK, if your player sends the right signal.Unfortunately my Sony seems to ignore it, too. (I live in Europe and my standalone and TV are connected through a SCART cable).

Wrt the domain stream atttributes, well, I'll just have to get used to selecting it by rightclicking in the main window instead. NP. :)

@bigotti5: I think mpucoder just meant that I could skip the step I described with creating a SUP file in Srt2Sup. So I'd still have to add the many lines of subtitle info to the .sst file, if I want to make sure the subtitle keeps popping up throughout the movie.

[Mtz]

How to create many lines:
Open Subtitles Workshop and create new Subtitle File (Ctrl+N) and you'll have an empty subtitle line.
Than keep pressing "Insert" (this will create empty lines) until you have the last time of the movie.
Ctrl+A to select all subtitles lines.
Right click on the selected area and choose "Italics".
Save the subtile as SubRip.
The resulted file opened in Notepad will look like this:
1
00:00:01,001 --> 00:00:02,001
< i >< / i >

2
00:00:02,002 --> 00:00:03,002
< i >< / i >

3
00:00:03,003 --> 00:00:04,003
< i >< / i >

Use "Find and replace" in Notepad to replace the < i >< / i > with what you want.

enjoy,
Mtz

[CoNS]

Thx Mtz, that's a good suggestion. I'll try it out.

However, though the solution with black bars in a subpic stream works, it is merely a workaround afterall. So I spent some time to look a bit more into physically removing the unwanted stuff from the video...

I tried with VirtualDubMod (I opened the demuxed .m2v file, added "null transform" filter and set my cropping coordinates), but due to the limited availability of output file formats in VirtualDubMod, it seems like I'd have to accept a quality loss when processing... :(

Merlin7777 (or anyone else?): I haven't used DGIndex and AviSynth before... Would it be possible for you to describe the steps I need to follow to extract the video to .d2v in DGIndex and process (crop) the video with AviSynth? TIA! :)

[r0lZ]

I tried with VirtualDubMod (I opened the demuxed .m2v file, added "null transform" filter and set my cropping coordinates), but due to the limited availability of output file formats in VirtualDubMod, it seems like I'd have to accept a quality loss when processing... :(
That's not true. You can frameserve from VirtualDub to almost all MP2 encoders. I did it with CCE w/o problem. Have a look at the frameserving with VirtualDub guide at the main Doom9 site.
You will find also very good guides on Avisynth.

[setarip_old]

@CONS1) crop the video, to leave out the black areasTry the "Clip Frames" function of TMPGEnc...

[CoNS]

@r0lZ: "... almost all MP2 encoders ...", right? Otherwise I'm really lost!!

@setarip_old: I haven't used TMPGEnc in a long time. Which version do I use? (Pro or DVD Studio or?). So "clip frames" is not a cutting function, like in VobBlanker or DVDShrink? It's really a function to crop the video? If my source DVD already fits a DVDR disc, would I be able to run it through TMPGEnc to crop/remove the content of the black "letterbox" bars without changing the video quality of the movie itself?

[r0lZ]

Of course, I mean MP2 encoders! (Huge typo fixed!)

Take care: if you reencode in 16:9, be sure that your subpic streams will be suitable for the new format! Also, take in mind that 16:9 requires more bandwidth for an equal quality, since the image will cover the whole resolution.

[setarip_old]

@CoNSWhich version do I use?I continue to use both the ancient version 1.2c, as well as v. 2.5.So "clip frames" is not a cutting function, like in VobBlanker or DVDShrink? It's really a function to crop the video?Yes, it's really a function for cropping video...

[CoNS]

Ok, Now I've tried the fully functional trial version of TMPGenc Plus 2.5. I can open my demuxed .m2v file and set the cropping coordinates, but how do I save it back to .m2v?