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bobotech · 2012-11-10, 23:54

I have several movies that I have ripped using MakeMKV that have ended up with black bars on all 4 sides. For example, 2001 A Space Odyssey and Spaceballs are 2 that come to mind. They are both "widescreen" versions on the dvd box and on the dvd but after I ripped them , they play back on my XBMC with black bars on all 4 sides. Its like they were made widescreen to fit 4:3 screens so when you play it on my widescreen tv, they end up with the 4:3 bars on either side whcih is highly annoying.

Is there any easy way of fixing the files? My Spaceballs dvd was in poor condition so getting it to rip was a pain so I would rather fix the existing rip rather than re--ripping the movies.

**PatK** · 2012-11-11, 00:31

You can specify the frame size in Handbrake... including cropping control. Using the keyboard Z command you can cycle through the various screen zooms.

bobotech · 2012-11-11, 00:35

Will I lose a lot of quality by running the files through Handbrake? I haven't used that program before but I will look into it.

**PatK** · 2012-11-11, 03:42

Any time you re-encode something that already has compression... you'll lose. But in the case of Handbrake, your loses will be made up somewhat with the larger screen size....

bobotech · 2012-11-11, 04:31

Well I ran Handbrake on my MKV file. I didn't really do anything other than launch it and choose the source file (my 3.6 gig Spaceballs movie) and output it to another MKV file.

I ended up with a 600meg file which concerned me. I don't need tiny files, I want to maintain as much quality as possible. However the black bars on the top and bottom of the picture are gone so that is good.

I did some digging and noticed something weird. My source MKV file (3.6gig) is widescreen but when I view it in VLC, there are bars on the top and bottom of the picture. That is what is causing the weird black bars all around when viewed in XBMC. When I viewed the newly handbraked MKV file, the black bars are completely gone so something good has happened.

But what are the best settings to use to do as little post processing compression and keep the original file size mostly intact?

**scott967** · (This post was last modified: 2012-11-11, 06:29 by scott967.)

(2012-11-10, 23:54)bobotech Wrote: I have several movies that I have ripped using MakeMKV that have ended up with black bars on all 4 sides. For example, 2001 A Space Odyssey and Spaceballs are 2 that come to mind. They are both "widescreen" versions on the dvd box and on the dvd but after I ripped them , they play back on my XBMC with black bars on all 4 sides. Its like they were made widescreen to fit 4:3 screens so when you play it on my widescreen tv, they end up with the 4:3 bars on either side whcih is highly annoying.

I imagine they were "letterboxed" when transferred to video/DVD. I have a dvd copy of 2001: "stanley kubric collection" the box says

WIDESCREEN VERSION presented in a "letterbox" widescreen format preserving the "scope" aspect ratio of its original theatrical exhibition.

When you look at the dvd with mediainfo it says:

Video
ID : 224 (0xE0)
Format : MPEG Video
Format version : Version 2
Duration : 2h 28mn
Bit rate mode : Variable
Width : 720 pixels
Height: 480 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 4:3
Frame rate : 29.970 fps
Standard : NTSC
Compression mode : Lossy

All commercial dvd are going to be 720x480 frame size. The DAR is the give-away, 4:3 rather than 16:9. (Those are called something like 16:9 anamorphic or enhanced for widescreen).

Bottom line is don't bother re-encoding unless you want to for space, and when playback in XBMC go to the video OSD video controls and select "stretch to 16:9". That will get rid of the side pillars, you still get "black bars" top and bottom due to 2.35 aspect (2001) or 1:85 (Spaceballs).

scott s.
.

bobotech · 2012-11-11, 07:52

Awesome. Thanks for the info. I think I like your suggestion since it appears to only be the case with a few of my movies. I didn't understand what some of the terms mean but now I'm getting it.

So even though a movie is listed as "widescreen" doesn't mean its a 16:9 ratio unless it says so on the box.

Is it possible to set a movie independent setting so that it will "stretch" when I watch it without resorting to having to change a setting each time I watch it? I jsut want to make this as easy as possible for my wife and kid.

~~Ned Scott~~ · 2012-11-11, 08:31

Video settings for zoom are saved per video.

bobotech · 2012-11-11, 10:35

Thanks a ton!! The movie specific settings worked great! I was able to zoom and keep the proper aspect ratio and fill the screen without encoding the movies all over again.

un1versal · 2012-11-11, 12:36

There are xbmc settings>Video has a setting too but that doesn't work anymore, (display 4.3 content as - 4.3 - 16:9 - zoom - wide zoom) so the alternative is goto osd like explained.

Which btw should work as a global setting avoiding the need to goto osd anyway.

uNi

corpgator · 2012-11-11, 21:34

Not that it matters much in the discussion, but 2001: A Space Odyssey is one of Kubrick's strange aspect ratio films: 2.2:1