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How to remove black bars on letterboxed video?

PostPosted: Fri Feb 09, 2018 5:20 pm
by Pritch
I just exported a project using older video clips that are 720x480 letterboxed. Does anyone know a good way to remove the black bars on the top and bottom of the clip before I burn to DVD?

Re: How to remove black bars on letterboxed video?

PostPosted: Fri Feb 09, 2018 6:58 pm
by Andrew Kolakowski
Just crop them :) Make sure you keep correct aspect.

Re: How to remove black bars on letterboxed video?

PostPosted: Fri Feb 09, 2018 7:21 pm
by Pritch
What can I use to crop? I've already exported the project, and the clip is 720x480 NTSC letterboxed. I just want to crop off the black bars before I burn to DVD so that it will play correctly on a 16x9 TV.

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Re: How to remove black bars on letterboxed video?

PostPosted: Fri Feb 09, 2018 7:55 pm
by Andrew Kolakowski
Fix it in original project and export new master- best solution.
Or load current file, crop and export new one.

Re: How to remove black bars on letterboxed video?

PostPosted: Fri Feb 09, 2018 9:55 pm
by BlakeVincentKueny
My method is to go to the inspector on the edit tab and go to the menu retime and scaling and then under scaling, I change it from project settings to fill and it removes the black bars.

Re: How to remove black bars on letterboxed video?

PostPosted: Fri Feb 09, 2018 10:17 pm
by Andrew Kolakowski
It all depends what is your source aspect and what is your end aspect ratio. Fill will blindly "fill" frame and possibly massively destroy original aspect. It's not a "generic" solution.
You want to take control and fix it properly, by cropping/zooming and re-framing if needed.

Re: How to remove black bars on letterboxed video?

PostPosted: Sat Feb 10, 2018 12:15 am
by Pritch
BlakeVincentKueny wrote:My method is to go to the inspector on the edit tab and go to the menu retime and scaling and then under scaling, I change it from project settings to fill and it removes the black bars.


Thanks for your suggestion. I tried it, and the only way it will work is if you're using project settings other than NTSC DV, which uses square pixels. My source video is DV, so I'm using NTSC DV as my project settings, and changing the clips to fill only had minimal effect.

Unless I find another way, I might just have to go as is, and have the smaller letterboxed image centered on the TV with the black borders. Not that bad, but wanted to make the video full screen if I could.

Re: How to remove black bars on letterboxed video?

PostPosted: Sat Feb 10, 2018 1:02 am
by Cary Knoop
Pritch wrote:I just exported a project using older video clips that are 720x480 letterboxed. Does anyone know a good way to remove the black bars on the top and bottom of the clip before I burn to DVD?

Set the right PAR in the clip properties and then zoom the clip in the edit page until the black bars are gone.

Re: How to remove black bars on letterboxed video?

PostPosted: Sat Feb 10, 2018 10:59 am
by Andrew Kolakowski
So your source is letterboxed and pillarboxed?

Do what Cary said. Just zoom in until bars are gone. If it was proper 16x9 video then both bars should disappear at the same time.

Re: How to remove black bars on letterboxed video?

PostPosted: Sun Feb 11, 2018 12:19 am
by Pritch
Cary Knoop wrote:
Pritch wrote:I just exported a project using older video clips that are 720x480 letterboxed. Does anyone know a good way to remove the black bars on the top and bottom of the clip before I burn to DVD?

Set the right PAR in the clip properties and then zoom the clip in the edit page until the black bars are gone.


Are you talking about the Pixel Aspect Ratio found in Clip Attributes? What would I set it to? NTSC 16x9 just squashes it horizontally.

Re: How to remove black bars on letterboxed video?

PostPosted: Sun Feb 11, 2018 12:20 am
by Pritch
Andrew Kolakowski wrote:So your source is letterboxed and pillarboxed?

Do what Cary said. Just zoom in until bars are gone. If it was proper 16x9 video then both bars should disappear at the same time.


My clips are just letterboxed. Black bars on top and bottom only.

Re: How to remove black bars on letterboxed video?

PostPosted: Sun Feb 11, 2018 11:19 am
by Andrew Kolakowski
So I assume they are 4x3 aspect (16x9 done as 4x3 letterboxed), so when you inserted them into 16x9 project they have bars on the sides also?
Same zooming procedure applies.

Make a screen grab of original clip in player which shows correct aspect.

Re: How to remove black bars on letterboxed video?

PostPosted: Sun Feb 11, 2018 9:30 pm
by Pritch
Yes, when I choose NTSC 16x9 DV in Project Settings, it does put black bars on the left and right sides also, but when it does that, it squashes the image horizontally. So it doesn't display correctly.

Re: How to remove black bars on letterboxed video?

PostPosted: Fri Sep 14, 2018 3:38 am
by TorstenHoffmann
After days of getting the bars removed but ending withn all kinds of ration and squezzed format issues I now found settings which work. You need to go to
Project Settings->ImageScaling and need to change Inpit and Output Scaling to 'Center Crop with no Resizing' and just out the Output resolution to what you need.

Re: How to remove black bars on letterboxed video?

PostPosted: Mon Nov 12, 2018 7:56 pm
by Gary Wedekind
Thanks Torsten, was just fighting with same problem for a Vimeo post and couldn't figure out how to get rid of those pesky black bars and never thought of looking in settings you mention. Thanks for taking trouble to post; I can stitch my hair back in now!