editing the picture!

[Demijan]

What is a good program to edit the picture of a DivX movie. Here's what I'm trying to do:

In this movie that ive ripped, there is a line at the top that flickers and displays some white dots which is pretty annoying. I thought if i pulled a black line with the same thickness over it that it would work out perfectly and make the flickering crap disappear. What program would allow me to do something like this??

thank you for all your replies

[megamachine]

Try VirtualDub, and use a masking filter.

[megamachine]

Or a cropping filter, like null transform.

[setarip]

To crop (DivX-compressed or other) .AVI videos

You can "erase" the undesirable portion by using VirtualDub as follows (it's not as complicated as it sounds):

1) Load the .AVI into VirtualDub (or one of its variants)
2) Set "Audio" to "Direct Stream Copying"
3) Set "Video" to "Full Processing Mode"
4) From under the "Video" dropdown menu, select "Compression" and select the same codec and settings that were used for the original .AVI
5) From under the "Video" dropdown menu, select "Filters"
6) Click on the "Add" radio button
7) Doubleclick on the "Null transform" filter
8) Click on the "Cropping" radio button
9) Enter the proper amount in the "Y2 offset" (at lower left) to cut off the undesirable portion
10) Click on "OK"
11) Click on the "Add" radio button
12) Doubleclick on the "Resize" filter
13) Under "New width and height" enter the NEW dimensions of your cropped video (e.g. 720x440)
14) Select "Precise bicubic"
15) Put a checkmark in "Expand frame and letterbox image"
16) Set "frame width" and "frame height" to the ORIGINAL dimensions (e.g. 720x480)
17) Click on "OK" (brings you back to primary "Filters" screen" and then click on "OK" (to get back to main VirtualDub screen)
18) From the "File" dropdown menu, select "Save AVI" and save with a NEW filename

Let us know of your success ;>}

[Demijan]

im gonna try all of that. thank you very much

[Demijan]

before I start, i have a few questions:

4) From under the "Video" dropdown menu, select "Compression" and select the same codec and settings that were used for the original .AVI

But wouldn't that just compress it once more and make quality worse? It's already DivX, wouldn't that compress the existing file into more DivX?

9) Enter the proper amount in the "Y2 offset" (at lower left) to cut off the undesirable portion

so would i be able to cut off just a little bit at the top? horizontally just cutting off a line?

13) Under "New width and height" enter the NEW dimensions of your cropped video (e.g. 720x440)

what if i dont know? i can only guess approximately what it would be if i cut off a little from the top

[megamachine]

Sorry for my terse reply above, it was on the fly, and I`m glad setarip provided the details. The filters recommended in VDub only work in full processing mode, which means you have to select a compression method. The Y2 offset is a breeze to use, I`m sure you`ve already figured that out.

[Demijan]

Originally posted by megamachine
Sorry for my terse reply above, it was on the fly, and I`m glad setarip provided the details. The filters recommended in VDub only work in full processing mode, which means you have to select a compression method. The Y2 offset is a breeze to use, I`m sure you`ve already figured that out.

But if I select the compression, won't it make the quality twice as worse as the original file? The original is already compressed to divx!

[setarip]

Try it, you'll like it ;>}

[Demijan]

Originally posted by setarip
Try it, you'll like it ;>}

Alright but im really confused about the compression thing. The movie is transferred from VHS to AVI and then it was compressed to DivX. If I pick compression to DivX again in virtual dub, won't it make the quality twice as worse?? a.k.a compressing the original divx avi another step further? can you please clarify this

[Demijan]

this compression thing ^^^ is what i really don't get.

[Demijan]

Well, I started converting it now, and from what I see at looking at the preview window, it's gonna turn out awesome! I'll let you know the final result. Thanks again very much.

[Demijan]

It turned out great! Thank you all for your help very much.

[Demijan]

Actually, there is a problem. I just noticed that the sound isn't in sync. It's off by like a second or two. :\

[setarip]

Nothing that you've done to crop the video could have affected the audio-video synch.

A) If the difference between audio and video is constant throughout the video:

Load the file into VirtualDub, VirtualDubMod, or NanDub.
Set BOTH "Video"(VirtualDub, VirtualDubMod and NanDub) and "Audio" (VirtualDub and NanDub - VirtualDubMOD>"Streams>"Stream list") to "Direct Stream Copy".
From the "Audio" dropdown menu, select "Interleaving" (For VirtualDubMOD, rightclick on the listed audiostream and then select "Interleaving")
Under "Audio skew correction", set an appropriate number of milleseconds (positive or negative) in the box labelled "Delay audio track by"
Save with a new filename

B) If the difference increases as the movie plays:

From under the "Video" dropdown menu, select "Framerate" - and select "Change so video and audio durations match"

Let us know of your success ;>}