Some cropping advice needed (DivX -> VCD)

[Boulder]

I've got this DivX3 file which is of resolution 640x480. The person who has encoded the file in the first place has put 12 pixels of black border to the left side and 8 pixels to the right. I'd very much like to get rid of these black borders without messing up the aspect ratio too much. An error of about 3% might be the limit in this case.

I'm about to convert the file to standard PAL VCD (352x288) and I'm in need of an advice. Is it possible to crop the borders or do I have to crop both horizontally and vertically to keep the aspect ratio near the original? I'm going to add 16 pixel borders on each side of the screen to cover the TV overscan, could this be integrated to the cropping somehow?

An aggressive solution would be to crop 16 pixels off each side, resize to 320x256 and then add the overscan borders (a suggestion by FitCD). I'd like to keep as much film pixels as possible and this thing just doesn't do that.

Any suggestions?

[int 21h]

Add borders of 4 pixels to the left, 8 pixels to the right, resize to 352 x 264, then add borders of 12 pixels on top and 12 pixels on bottom.

I *think* that would be correct.

[Boulder]

Thanks, I'll try that. :)