Sometimes
when you download a video and
then try to reproduce it on your PC or TV, there appear distracting black bars
on both sides or along the top and bottom of the video. It means that the
aspect ratio of the video differs from the one of your TV.
WHY DO BLACK BARS APPEAR?
The two most popular aspect ratios are 4:3 and 16:9. 4:3 is a
standard TV format, while 16:9 is a format of high-definition TV and monitors.
When you try to playback a 4:3 on a modern 16:9 TV, you see that black bars are
added to your video to fill the empty space. If you record a movie while
watching it, the black bars will become a part of your video. Some people bow
to the inevitable trying to pay no attention to black bars, but others are
getting mad. Well, in case you belong to the second group, read this article to
learn how to remove black bars and prepare your video file for watching on your
TV/home cinema.
Everything you need is a video file you want to watch and a
program that will help you to remove black bars easily and without quality
loss.
FREEMAKE VIDEO CONVERTER
Let’s start
with Freemake Video Converter Gold Pack. The program
will find and delete black bars automatically. See the screenshot:
However,
if you want to remove black bars from video
manually, follow these simple steps:
1. Run the program and using +Video button add the video with black bars
you want to cut.
2. Then go to File – Options – Black bars and select delete
black bars.
3. Choose one of the video formats or devices in green bubbles at
the bottom of the program . For example, to AVI, MP4, WMV, MKV, Apple, Sony,
Android etc
4. In case you don’t want to reduce file size or change anything
else, click Convert to apply changes.
Since my video was not too long, it took me a couple of seconds
to have it converted.
The pros of Freemake Video Converter Gold Pack are:
·
Multiple language support
·
User-friendly interface
·
Many supported input and output formats
·
High conversion speed
·
High quality of output video
Among
cons I’d name that the Gold Pack version is not free. While Freemake
Video Converter is absolutely free, the Gold Pack options require a decent
payment. If you don’t want to pay for this option, you can crop black bars
manually by creating a custom conversion present.
XVID4PSP
The
second program I tried was XviD4PSP. Unlike
Freemake Video Converter, that is mostly used for file conversion, Xvid4PSP was
developed for video editing.
The program has various audio and video encoding settings, filters and even
color correction.
Add a
video by clicking the Open button. When the video appears in the
program, go to Video, select Delete
black borders in
drop down menu, and XviD4PSP will delete black bars automatically. Then have a
look at video preview. If you are satisfied with the result, choose an output
format, codec and audio encoding in the left column. Use color correction or
filtering if needed. When editing is done, click Encode and wait till your video in converted.
If you
cut black bars pretty often, go Settings – Auto crop and choose All
files. Now XviD4PSP will detect and delete black bars
automatically while opening a video.
In case
you don’t trust the program or like to have everything under control, you can
delete black bars manually. Go to Video – Resolution/Aspect.
If you know how much pixels to cut, you can set the numbers in Crop
top/bottom or Crop
left/right fields.
More likely you don’t, so better user easy manual crop.
Point
with grey lines the parts you want to crop and click Ok.
Then follow the instructions above and encode your video.
Though
the quality of output video was pretty good, I faced one problem while using
XviD4PSP. The playback is different in various players. For
example, it’s excellent in VLC player and Mplayer, but in DivX or Windows Media
Player it was lacking codecs and got pixilated all the time.
Pros:
·
Free
·
Multiple language support
·
User-friendly interface
·
Many supported input and output formats
·
High conversion speed
·
High quality of output video
·
Colour correction
Cons:
·
Playback quality depends on a player
VIRTUALDUB
Finally,
the last program for this test was VirtualDub, a
free software for professional video editing.
Being
advised by many people the program appeared to have one serious disadvantage.
It supports only AVI and MPEG-1 formats. So if your video is in MKV, 3G or MP4
how it was in my case you should convert it to AVI before cropping black bars.
When you
are done with conversion, run VirtualDub and drag-and-drop your video to the
program. The easiest option is to use a null transform filter. Click Video – Filters – Add – Null transform – OK. Now
click Croppingbutton.
The program will open a special window where, using a mouse, you could set the
borders of the black bars. Don’t forget to click OK to save the changes. When you
finish with cropping, go again to Video, but now
choose Compression to set a necessary codec. You’ll see
all the codecs installed on your PC.
You may
set audio compression as well if needed. Just go to Audio – Compression and choose an audio codec you need.
When
your video is ready for decoding, click File – Save as AVI to save it without black bars.
TEST RESULTS
I should say that all the three programs worked pretty fast and
showed good results for audio and video playback. Click the pics below to
compare the original file and converted ones.