[bringe54]

Hi to everyone. Can anybody help me out and recommend a good free software for cropping videos?? mainly for getting rid of those annoying black margins down each side of the video. Ive been to google and download com I even downloaded one but it didn,t work. I guess your all going to suggest Virtual dub. but I could never get that to work properly either.
There must be a simple free program out there that just crops video files.
Anyone have any ideas??
Many thanks in advance.

[midders]

In order to crop a video file permanently you will have to re-encode the video completely. This is due to the way that video is compressed in the various file formats. The software that you use for this depends on what codec your video files use. VirtualdubMod is definitely my tool of choice for this operation; if you're having trouble getting started with this incredibly powerful tool, check out the guides at doom9 and videohelp.com.

If you will only be playing the videos on your computer then you can use Avisynth to do real-time cropping. Avisynth is another very powerful tool; to get started with it check out 'start here' section of the manual.

All tools available at videhelp.com (link in sig) as well as a massive searchable forum with guides for just about everything video related.

Slainte

midders

[bringe54]

Hi Midders. Many thanks for your reply. Ive downloaded virtualdubmod again and had another go with it. I managed to find the cropping button which took the black edges off which I wanted, and I could see the result in the right hand screen, although not all of it, its to big for my 20" screen (is there a remedy for that??) anyway, when I clicked "save as" and seleted a location and clicked save, I got a message saying "could not carry on with the operation because an invalid size was given, Error 7."
I went to the help page but it dosn't have error numbers and descriptions.
Have you got any idea where ime going wrong???
Many thanks in advance.

Bringe54

[midders]

Most video codecs require that the horizontal and vertical resolutions are divisable by 2, and some by 4 or even 8; check this in your cropping filter. Also, it would help to advise you if you posted the MediaInfo data about the file that you're cropping and also which codec you're re-encoding it with.

[bringe54]

Hi Midders. I had another go with virtualdubmod and got to the point where I was before, then I resized the output to 640x480 because ive got a 4/3 screen. Then I looked through the list of codecs one by one and I see what you mean about some needing to be divisible by 2,4,6 ect. I just chose one that had no comments and clicked save and it worked!!!
The output video was larger than the input video but I can deal with that.
So Many thanks for your suggestions. I have not clicked on solved yet because I have one last question/request if thats ok??
Have you any Idea how to make virtualdubmod recognise mp4 or flv video files?? I have a video converter which would solve the problem but I dont want to loose any quality and of course it would be quicker!!!
Awaiting your Expert reply.

Bringe54.

[midders]

For maximum support of different video and audio codecs, I would suggest that you install ffdshow and AviSynth. ffdshow supports the majority of video and audio codecs/containers including flv and mp4.

You can then create an AviSynth script which VirtualDub can use as input. e.g.:
- create a plain text file called "film.avs" with the contents below:

DirectShowSource("MyFilm.mp4")

where you've changed "MyFilm.mp4" to the name of your file, and save the avs file in the same folder as the mp4 file. Load this file from VirtualDub and it should work fine. (If it doesn't work, run the ffdshow video configuration program and make sure that mp4 decoding is enabled).

Mp4 is a container format which means that it is a wrapper for multiple video and audio codecs so the above might not work for all mp4 files. Another option is to use Yamb and Mp4box to split the file into video and audio parts and handle them separately.

Another useful tool that you might require is Haali Media Splitter (Matroska Splitter) which handles mkv files.

[austinpcrepair]

Hi Bringe54:

To help your with video cropping. Let say you want to export your videos in any dimensions, you may use Macromedia / Adobe Flash or Adobe Premiere Pro then export it in your desired formats (wmv, mov, flv or mpg).

To work out, you may try to use Adobe products in a trial version.

[bringe54]

Hi Guys. Many thanks for all your help and support.
Im'e very happy with getting virtualdubmod to work, as for mp4 and flv I'lle give that a go later.
As for now, im'e going to click the solved button.
Many thanks once again, but no doubt i'lle be back again with another problem when something else goes wrong or decides not to work.

Bringe54