Inseting footage into a black frame... is it possible?

[boxcm]

I've been looking through the guides and through the forum and while there's lots of help for resizing video, I haven't been able to find an answer to my issue.

I'm in the process of prepping videos for screening at a convention. The issue is that with fullscreen (4:3), subtitles often get cut... sometimes only minor, like the tails of g, p and y ... and other times the subs are halved.

While I could convert everything to widescreen (16:9) I'd rather not since it stretches/squishes the footage.

What I'd like to do is somehow inset the footage into a pseudo-widescreen with black bars either at the top/bottom or a black frame around the footage. I believe this should keep the video centered and the subtitles from being cropped.

I will point out that I have limited resources and I'm not all up for some fancy scripting that I've seen that is/has been done to get AVIsynth to crop... please, I am a newb and I have over 40 hours of shows to process.

If it can't be done, so be it... we'll just have to run the risk of cropped titles

[Orwell]

Wait wait wait, are you working with Fansubs, or are these titles you added yourself? If there fansub titles, the con, unless its a very low quality one, probably won't even accept your video.

[boxcm]

This are fansubs and I am not making an AMV. I'm posting here because of the vast number of editors that lurk around here in the hopes someone could answer my question.

I'm part of the programming department and we have issues with displaying fansubs since the titles tend to be cropped.

If it's possible, we'd like to inset these videos into black frames in order to keep the aspect ratio but keep the titles from being cropped.

I know I can easily convert these videos into widescreen but the footage loses aspect ratio.

[Psygnius]

why do you need to maintain aspect ratio?

I've be able to add black bars to make it look like wide screen format and keep the 4:3 aspect ratio. However it was done on a Media100. My "Because You Loved Me" AMV and another one of my videos used this method (but I ended up just changing the aspect ratio of the second video anyways).

In Media100, I can create a title frame and add shapes and objects, well, I decided to add two black rectangles to the picture and place them in the appropriate locations, then I stretched the title frame to stay active for the entire length of the video. Then rendered it.

Hopefully this will give you an idea that can help you.

[Psygnius]

OHHH.... I understand what you are asking now. Why don't you use VirtualDub to chop off the top of the picture... like maybe about 40 or 50 pixels.

This will change the aspect ratio, but if you play the movie in media player, or burn it to DVD, everything that was too low to be viewed will be shifted up a little bit more, at least enough to be viewed properly.

This method should not squish or stretch the picture, but it will remove a little bit of the top of the picture. And the center of the picture will be shifted up a little bit when it is viewed.

[DJ_Izumi]

Actually, I think what he wants to do is letter box 4:3 footage into 16:9, that is to add black bars to the SIDES of the video frame instead of the top and bottom.

But I'm not exactly sure why, I'm guessing he's using some sorta 16:9 projection system. Though most data projectors are 4:3... I'd like to hear more about the purpose than the problem. o.O

[boxcm]

Thanks for the replies!

Perhaps I should be more verbose in what I wish to do...

At our convention, when we project our fansubbed shows often the subtitling gets cut off on the display. It does not matter if the subtitling is at the top or bottom, both edges get cut. We've tried adjusting the projectors but to no avail. If the show is in 16:9, we don't have this issue, it is only shows in 4:3 that get cut off.

The same issue happens with some TVs when showing fansubs. My previous TV had no problems with cutting of subtitles but my newest TV cuts them right in half. This makes me think that it is a display issue and not the video. We use in-house equipment at the local university so I can only do so much to their systems. Heck, if I had enough systems (and the ability to rewire the set up) I just jack in bunch of towers that have the correct codecs and play our shows that way... But I don't think the university would take to kindly to us rewiring the in-room A/V system

I said before I don't want to lose the aspect ratio because I want to maintatin the original video as much as possible. I can quite easily convert 4:3 shows into 16:9 but then the image quailty changes and everything looks stretched/squished. If this is my only only option I'll do it but I've come to a-m-v.org to look for help.

All of our shows are on DVD so the source has to be editted. Thusly the idea to add black bars to offset the image so that when displayed, the subtitles remain visable. My first idea is to center any 4:3 shows on a black frame. While I don't think it's this simple, my idea is like setting a 800x600 image on top of a 1024x768 black background so that it is framed by black bars. That way when the show is projected, it should be centered on the screen with no cutting of subtitles no matter the location of those titles.

Does this explaination help at all?

[The Eva Monkey]

So basically you want to increase the size of the TV/Titlesafe regions?

[DJ_Izumi]

A projector shouldn't HAVE title safe issues. It's a PROJECTOR. It should show the entire scan region.

Further more, if he's using a data projector, something is just right screwed up there. o_o

[boxcm]

It's not the projector I think. When these files get converted into DVD format, some TVs cut the titles off as well ... that makes me think I have to edit the files themselves so that they will display correctly.