Wanted: video editing program to remove letterboxing
 

So I've got a whole bunch of downloaded HD shows which are 720p. But They don't show up on my monitor as full 720p because of the damned letterboxing they were recorded/broadcast in. Does anyone know if there's a video editing program I can use to chop off the black boxes at the top and bottom and leave myself just with the actual program?

Bonus points if I can also chop out segments of a program, I'd love to compile things like the TG races and whatnot...not that I download that wonderful car show from those three british blokes.

I think VirtualDub can do it. You can edit the direct stream, so no need for transcoding.

Instead of editing, have you tried zooming in until the black bars are gone (IE DIY pan-and-scan)? NumPad 9 zooms, if you're using MPC.

Do you just want to watch it without the letterbox, or you actually want to edit it out of the file?

i use VLC player to do that on the fly, just start playing the vid, hit the show extended settings button at the bottom and then video effects > crop and increase the per pixel crop on the affected sides.

I actually want to crop it out. There's always workarounds, but it's frustrating each and every tune having to go back in an do the same things and then change it back for the next non-boxed show.

VirtualDub would be a good choice for both tasks.

For just chopping out segments, you can choose "Direct Stream Copy" for both video and audio, so there's no re-encoding necessary.

For cropping videos though, I think you need to re-encode.

BTW, The videos are still full 720p, despite not filling your screen. It's due to the original aspect ratio that the movie was filmed in. A lot of films are 21:9 instead of your display's 16:9.

Yeah, I know. I just hate the letterboxing. It's the OCD in me.

If you remove letter boxing the sides of the video will be chopped off.

So now that I've finally gotten around to taking y'alls advice, there's a problem.

The TG that I've acquired is in .mkv format, which Virtual Dub seems to be allergic to. Any suggestions beyond "Convert it to something Virtual Dub likes and then edit it"?

demux the mkv, remove the letterbox, then remux back to MKV.

lots of work tho.

^ Yeah MKV is just a container. If you demux it you'll get all the files inside. Lot of effort though.