newbie-questions on cropping

[tominator]

Hi
I want to transcode a large number of DVDs to wmv and and Id like to do it as smoothly as possible but at the same time I want my results to be as good as they can be.

Ive understood I can quite easily rip the mpeg2-files from the DVDs and bulk process them through Windows Media Encoder or such. But when bulk processing I cant manually set the cropping for each title.

What are the downsides of not cropping? How will it effect my resulting wmv-files?

[Irakli]

I want to transcode a large number of DVDs to wmv and and Id like to do it as smoothly as possible but at the same time I want my results to be as good as they can be.

Ive understood I can quite easily rip the mpeg2-files from the DVDs and bulk process them through Windows Media Encoder or such. But when bulk processing I cant manually set the cropping for each title.

I would suggest using AutoMKV to encode to WMV. It can crop your files automatically to get rid of black bars.

[tominator]

I would suggest using AutoMKV to encode to WMV. It can crop your files automatically to get rid of black bars.

Thank you! But Id also like to understand why Im doing it. Could you please give me some quick info on why cropping is important?

[stax76]

Could you please give me some quick info on why cropping is important?

It saves some bits but with x264 it isn't that much.

[smok3]

i say forget auto-crop, if you need speedy workflow just encode with black bars.

[stax76]

i say forget auto-crop

Auto crop works well so why not?

[dat720]

It doesnt make that much difference if you crop or not, you will end up with a smaller file at the same bitrate if you crop, but the video will be the same aspect regardless if you crop or not, i like cropping as it gives me the oportunity to stretch the movie to full screen on various media players (the wife winges about black borders on movies)

[smok3]

Auto crop works well so why not?

if speed is a virtue, then autocrop is just another step that can go wrong (and it will go wrong in my experience...), that is what i was trying to say :)

[tominator]

It saves some bits but with x264 it isn't that much.

Im encoding wmv. From my experience with using DVDs as source I get a whole bunch of disturbance and "glassy" lines at the top and bottom of the movie unless I crop it.

Dont you remove stuff like that from your encodes?

[stax76]

I encode SD anamorphic without resizing, I overcrop to get a mod 16 value so yes.

[unskinnyboy]

First question - why WMV? Why choose this container? What's the video and audio format you are choosing and why?

OK, now why should you crop? If you don't crop the black bars, then the edges at which the movie pixels end and the black borders begin, creates a sharp transition which codecs find difficulty dealing with. These sharp edges will result in a quality/compression loss when encoding. So, if you care about quality and/or a target filesize, you must crop.

Since you are bulk processing, most of the decent front-end GUIs should offer an autocrop feature, and if it allows configuration of autocrop, set it to a conservative threshold (e.g. 34) so it won't overcrop. But autocrop still won't be perfect, and it might end up undercropping (you have the black border issue again) or overcropping (you lose picture content) still.

Or not crop at all and suffer the quality loss, but speed up things. It's your call.

[stax76]

Is there a application at all that can batch process DVD sources to wmv?