Resize / Add Border to Mpeg4 without further quality loss

[jstillion]

Basically, what is the best way to take an DivX/Xvid file and shrink it and add black borders using virtual dub, while getting the least amount of quality loss due to encoding twice?

Only way I kinda go it to work is to uncompress the file with the resize filter then re-encode the file. Is there a better way to do this that does not lose any quality?

I have Virtual Dub, DivX 5.x Pro, and Dr. DivX.

[killingspree]

hi and welcome to the forum,

unfortunately, no there isn't anyway to do the tasks you want to do without reencoding/loss of quality.

you can of course add black borders /resize in realtime while playback, which will not alter the video stream permanently though (not change the filesize)

kr
steVe

[manono]

Hi-

Yes, you'll take a double hit in quality. One just for the reencoding (minor, perhaps), and another one for shrinking the size, even if you also lower the resolution. However, I'm not quite sure why you want to add black around it. Is it so you can put subtitles down in the black, maybe?

[bond]

resizing of mpeg-4 is possible via setting the pixel aspect ratio in the bitstream (eg with mpeg4modifier)
this will only work in .mp4 atm tough

also matroska offers the option to set an AR

also you could add borders to a mpeg-4 stream with using mpeg-4 systems, but this isnt easily doable and the borders will only be shown when the .mp4 is played in a systems decoder (eg enviviotv, osmo4)

[jstillion]

Thank you for all of your responses :)

The main reason is to add small black borders so when the encoded files play back on my dvd player (Phillips DVP642/37), the video edges are not overscanned. This espically becomes a problem if subtitles were embeded as part of the video right near the bottom.