Removing black borders from video & audio issue

[Alex_kaplan]

[MODERATOR NOTE: technical discussion continued from movie thread here: viewtopic.php?p=118177#p118177]

I downloaded the DVD, converted to MKV, but this border is black on all sides - how to expand to full screen, without losing quality

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[deadman]

I downloaded the DVD, converted to MKV, but this border is black on all sides - how to expand to full screen, without losing quality

There's no simple way, you have to re-encode the video. Done properly you can actually get results that improve on the source quality. Even without doing an AI upscale, I've found that using a sharpening filter and a high quality setting (which often gives you a file bigger than the original) prevents degradation of the image. You do have to be careful not to over-sharpen a grainy image though. That looks terrible.

[Alex_kaplan]

I downloaded the DVD, converted to MKV, but this border is black on all sides - how to expand to full screen, without losing quality

There's no simple way, you have to re-encode the video. Done properly you can actually get results that improve on the source quality. Even without doing an AI upscale, I've found that using a sharpening filter and a high quality setting (which often gives you a file bigger than the original) prevents degradation of the image. You do have to be careful not to over-sharpen a grainy image though. That looks terrible.

Thank you very much for the reply, I realize that the process is not easy and takes time, and you can get a worse image result

[Night457]

If you are watching on your computer, Play the ISO with VLC. It may take a little longer to load than an MKV and you may have to approve playing it for security reasons. Then select Video > Crop > 1.85:1, then toggle the video in fullscreen. I just did that.
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[Night457]

Version 2: Convert the ISO to MKV using MakeMKV. Play it with VLC, select Video > Crop > 1.85:1, then toggle the video in fullscreen. That works on the MKV also. If you play back the MKV using a BluRay player connected to a USB hard drive, your TV or BluRay player may have a zoom function you can use.

NO RE-ENCODING IS NECESSARY.

NOTE: the aspect ratio to crop to depends on the movie, you will have to experiment with different movies.

Thank you deadman for the DVD!

[deadman]

NO RE-ENCODING IS NECESSARY.

NOTE: the aspect ratio to crop to depends on the movie, you will have to experiment with different movies.

Thank you deadman for the DVD!

You're welcome.

You can always use your media player to adjust for full screen playback. I was talking about creating a file that will play back that way on its own. No tinkering necessary. Unfortunately there's no way to simply retain the active viewing window while dropping the black space, without re-encoding the file.

[Night457]

I know that you know what you are talking about, deadman, and I often look forward to your posts to LEARN something, particularly involving movie & video tech. I understand that making a new file without borders involves recoding. But in this case I was literally answering Alex's question "how to expand to full screen, without losing quality". And that is exactly what I described. If someone needs to pause the playback in VLC fullscreen they only need to hit the SPACEBAR on the keyboard.

[Alex_kaplan]

Thank you very much Night457 for the tip, in solving the problem with the black frame, I got it, I use VLS media player

[Alex_kaplan]

NO RE-ENCODING IS NECESSARY.

NOTE: the aspect ratio to crop to depends on the movie, you will have to experiment with different movies.

Thank you deadman for the DVD!

You're welcome.

You can always use your media player to adjust for full screen playback. I was talking about creating a file that will play back that way on its own. No tinkering necessary. Unfortunately there's no way to simply retain the active viewing window while dropping the black space, without re-encoding the file.

As for saving a file without a black frame, I use the program Eassiy, but it is a long process and I do not know I think the clarity will be worse, well, let's see, I have not done it before, I will look at the results after processing

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[Night457]

I totally get what deadman was aiming for, playback in the preferred presentation with no tinkering beyond a one-time video encoding.

Spoiler: I just do not trust my abilities at that so I do it as little as possible, and I do not recommend it to a novice. If they already have the know-how to do it then they are not asking anyone! Deadman's warnings are absolutely correct. There are a few expert video recoders here but I am not one of them. The only thing I am willing to do is blur out a watermark or crop it out if it is in the black bars. I use a higher bitrate and compare the results to the original. The "Effect & Filter" tab in your software might have the sharpening filter that deadman suggested. You might have to experiment with multiple encodes to see how they look. Your software might have an option to select just a few minutes of the video rather than the whole runtime, which would make your encoding experiments go much faster. For this movie, if I watch it on my computer I would crop it like I said with VLC because the laptop screen is still relatively small. If I watch it on my large projection screen I would probably LEAVE the black bars there because otherwise it would be so big that it would noticeably reveal the DVD source limitations. Mind you, I have watched videotape on large-screen 4k HD TVs so I AM willing to push things to a ridiculous extent. The VHS playback will be BIG but it will not be 4k!