Handbrake & Black Bars

Author: livserge
Date: 16-Sep-2013, 9:02 PM

Author: livserge
Time: 16-Sep-2013 9:02 PM
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I have a question about handbrake. I have a scope ratio video file (2:39), yet handbrake zooms in & gets rid of the black bars. I've tried different settings, yet I get the same results every time. I can't figure out what I'm doing wrong. Any ideas? (I apologize if this seems like a dumb question.) I just like watching movies in the correct aspect ratio. Black bars do not bother me!

Olivia James

Author: guiser
Time: 17-Sep-2013 12:14 AM
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I believe HandBrake just does this to save space in the output. The rationale being if they are just black why encode them at all.

The aspect ratio of the video shouldn't be changing, what are you using for playback?

Author: Jonno
Time: 17-Sep-2013 12:44 PM
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Handbrake automatically crops any letterboxing/windowboxing unless you specify otherwise, but the option is fairly clear on the first 'Picture' tab - set Cropping (on the right hand side) to Custom 0, 0, 0, 0.

If that's what you're already doing... are you doing any resizing? I guess that might be overriding your crop settings (even though it shouldn't be).

Author: livserge
Time: 17-Sep-2013 5:55 PM
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It's weird. I'm setting the cropping all to 0. It still zooms in to fill out my television. I don't know. All I'm trying to do is encode it to mkv, then use tsmuxer to make it AVCHD, then use ImgBurn to burn it to a disc. It plays back fine except for the cropping that handbrake is doing!

Olivia James

Author: guiser
Time: 18-Sep-2013 1:29 AM
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Check the HandeBrake log for the encode (you might need to turn verbosity up in the settings then run the encode again), there are a ton of useful messages there. It will tell you the values used for copping, anamorphic, aspect ratio, etc. These are all important when trying to diagnose an issue like this.

Author: livserge
Time: 18-Sep-2013 12:23 PM
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Okay. I turned up verbosity & it just told me about the aspect ratio & that cropping was set to 0,0,0,0 What should I do now? Or maybe Handbrake just doesn't "like" this file? Maybe I need to set it to add black bars? If so, how do I go about this? Sorry for all the questions, it's just that this seems so simple but frustrating!

Olivia James

Author: guiser
Time: 19-Sep-2013 1:41 AM
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At this point I would probably suspect the conversion you are doing or the playback device.

If you play it back on your computer (using VLC for example) is the aspect correct? I would verify this first.

I'm not that familiar with tsmuxer or ImgBurn, but maybe there is a setting you need to change somewhere (or it isn't picking up the aspect ratios correctly)? Perhaps someone more familiar with this type of conversion could chime in.

Author: livserge
Time: 19-Sep-2013 8:01 AM
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Yes, I forgot to mention that. It does play back correctly on my computer.

Olivia James

Author: livserge
Time: 22-Sep-2013 9:51 PM
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Well, I tried it with Ripbot with success! I think I'll stick with it from now on. Handbrake is still good software but I think for me personally, Ripbot will be the way to go.

Olivia James