Feature request: Crop to 16:9 or 4:3

[OlDer]

I often do not want to have full 2.35:1 video on my TV. So it would be nice to have possibility to crop picture to 16:9 or 4:3 size.

[len0x]

Pan&Scan basically...
If you're playing from TV-output of your PC, then software players can do that (like BSPlayer for instance). If you have a standalone then zoom option should work as well.
I'm not sure yet how useful to have movie permanently pan&scaned...

[OlDer]

Originally posted by len0x
Pan&Scan basically...
If you're playing from TV-output of your PC, then software players can do that (like BSPlayer for instance). If you have a standalone then zoom option should work as well.

Yes, software players can do that. And my standalone (I have Mustek) also can zoom, but only 2x for MPEG4.
Reason for this option is quality. I'd prefer to not waste bitrate on borders which I do not see in zoomed mode anyway. And I will do backup which will fit my TV's screen perfectly...

[gircobain]

Originally posted by OlDer
I'd prefer to not waste bitrate on borders which I do not see in zoomed mode anyway.
I wonder why did you buy a widescreen dvd in first place then?? :confused:

[fewtch]

Originally posted by gircobain
I wonder why did you buy a widescreen dvd in first place then?? :confused:
Fairly silly question -- DVD's sell in whatever format (usually widescreen), normally you can't choose.

[gircobain]

Originally posted by fewtch
Fairly silly question -- DVD's sell in whatever format (usually widescreen), normally you can't choose.
Fairly silly answer -- most newer dvd's sell in both widescreen and pan&scan, exactly because many bigheads want to watch a crippled version of the movie
And if one buys a widescreen dvd to begin with, and claims that the widescreen format is a waste of bitrate, for they zoom it to full screen, then according to that concept buying a widescreen dvd should be a waste altogether!

[jggimi]

Lets all play nice and try to follow #)*(&$$#!! Rule 4 (http://forum.doom9.org/forum-rules.htm), shall we?

There is a market for fullscreen media. There is a market for widescreen media. It is also true that in some geographies, and with some products, there is no choice.

I may disagree with another member's choice of product, assuming there was a choice. But I don't call him an idiot, even if I believe that to be the case. :cool:

I expect the rest of you to behave the same way.

[jggimi]

I can also correct a misunderstanding:... I'd prefer to not waste bitrate on borders ... You don't. The AVI output is resized (based on the 4:3/16:9 DAR flag) and the letterboxing / pillarboxing is cropped away.

[fewtch]

Originally posted by gircobain
Fairly silly answer -- most newer dvd's sell in both widescreen and pan&scan, exactly because many bigheads want to watch a crippled version of the movie
I must be on another planet... 90%+ of DVD's I see in stores are widescreen only. Maybe we're looking at different movies... :confused:

[manono]

We teach people to encode here. We also should teach people to encode properly here. That means, among other things, that you encode to the OAR (Original Aspect Ratio). You don't crop a widesceeen movie because of some mistaken impression that bits are being wasted on black bars, or it doesn't fill the screen or something else.

Also, you have to understand that true Pan-And-Scan is very different from just cropping to make a fullscreen AVI from an original widescreen DVD. With Pan-And-Scan, the picture can move left/right, up/down, and in, within the original widesceeen presentation, in order to center on the action. All we can do is to crop from the sides. Often, this will leave you out of the action, when it occurs off to the side. All in all, creating a fullscreen AVI from a widescreen DVD is a very bad idea, and I hope len0x never makes it possible to accomplish from within AutoGK.

You can, however, crop away to your heart's content from within GKnot or on your own. I just hope you don't ever do it.

Wanna compare some scenes of the original widescreen vs the the Pan-And Scan version? Here's LOTR-ROTK:

http://www.widescreen.org/examples/lord_rings_rotk/index.shtml

In some of these, if you just cropped (the 7th one down, for example), you'd lose everything of interest in the shot. As it is, because Peter Jackson is very adept at using the whole screen, for me, the Pan-And-Scan loses much of the scale, the spaciousness, the grandeur, of the widescreen version.

[OlDer]

Originally posted by manono
You don't crop a widesceeen movie because of some mistaken impression that bits are being wasted on black bars,


Maybe you misunderstood me. I mean that when I use zoom on my player - I have picture which I like, but there are invisible borders - left and right and encoding these borders is bitrate wastage.

All in all, creating a fullscreen AVI from a widescreen DVD is a very bad idea, and I hope len0x never makes it possible to accomplish from within AutoGK.

Here you can teach people how to encode video. But you can't teach people how to watch 2.35:1 movie on 4:3 TV. Personally, I prefer zoomed mode, and picture about 16:9 is enough for me. It is why I've asked.
Anyway - I do not have plans to distribute my AVIs, and I do it for my personal use. So I can't see any reason why this option would be bad for other people.

[manono]

Hi-

Maybe you misunderstood me.

Maybe you're right. Are you saying that AutoGK didn't crop away all the black on the left and right sides? Try opening the AVI in VDubMod. Do you see black on the left and right? If not, then there's something else going on, perhaps related to your DVD player and/or your TV set, but unrelated to AutoGK.

But it looks like, as of AutoGK 1.85, you can crop the way you want:

- added additional parameters to control autocrop (see hidden_options.txt), so manual cropping can now be performed

[fewtch]

Originally posted by manono
Hi-

Maybe you misunderstood me.

Maybe you're right. Are you saying that AutoGK didn't crop away all the black on the left and right sides? Try opening the AVI in VDubMod. Do you see black on the left and right? If not, then there's something else going on, perhaps related to your DVD player and/or your TV set, but unrelated to AutoGK.
He's saying that in zoom mode, there's stuff encoded that he doesn't ever see (namely, what gets cut off on the left & right in zoom mode).

[OlDer]

Originally posted by fewtch
He's saying that in zoom mode, there's stuff encoded that he doesn't ever see (namely, what gets cut off on the left & right in zoom mode).
Exactly!