Rip 4:3 BD content (with black bars) as actual 4:3

[DrWhoFanJ]

Hello, everyone,

Is there some trick I'm missing to get content that is 4:3 with black bars to fill a 16:9 screen to appear as 4:3 files when stored and watched? I ask for two main reasons:

1. The black bars force the player window to take more screen area than it actually needs; and
2. They also make the files larger than they need to be, and my external storage drive has started reaching the point where it can no longer take all the content it could when it was storing the DVD releases of the same episodes, such that I have to keep removing some things to make space for other things.

(Also, is it possible to bulk convert what is currently stored on that drive to true 4:3 without needing to re-rip it all from scratch alongside setting new rips to pre-emptively be true 4:3?)

Kind regards and looking forward to getting this problem resolved,
DrWhoFanJ.

[dcoke22]

MakeMKV makes a one-to-one copy of what's on a disc. If the disc's authors chose to embed 4:3 content in a 16:9 file then that's what you'll end up with. MakeMKV isn't adding or subtracting anything; it is just copying the data on the disc and placing it in a .mkv file.

DVDs, blu-rays, and 4K UHDs are all compressed in some fashion. Each format uses a different compression method but since they're compressed, that means any black bars embedded in the content are compressed as well. The amount of space the black bars take up is small so cutting them out won't save much space.

It is possible to make a meaningful change in the amount of space used by a rip by transcoding it with a tool like Handbrake. It can even crop the 4:3 content out of a 16:9 file during the process. However, it is worth thinking through the implications before going down this route.

The easiest answer is to buy more storage. Or, more precisely, we all should've bought more storage 6 or 8 months ago.

[tomty89]

1. The black bars force the player window to take more screen area than it actually needs

Don't most players allow you to crop "on-the-fly"?

[Woodstock]

As mentioned above, handbrake can make a big difference in files like this. It will (by default) strip off the black bars of video, then encode it to make it smaller.

Older Doctor Who files? 380MB per episode (4-6 per show). New ones? Around 4-5GB. Makes for a LOT more space that just stripping off the bars!

[DrWhoFanJ]

1. The black bars force the player window to take more screen area than it actually needs

Don't most players allow you to crop "on-the-fly"?

Yes, but the black bars are still included within that cropping as they're interpreted as being part of the image. What I'm wanting is to have those black bars removed entirely instead.

[DrWhoFanJ]

As mentioned above, handbrake can make a big difference in files like this. It will (by default) strip off the black bars of video, then encode it to make it smaller.

Older Doctor Who files? 380MB per episode (1-14 per story). New ones? Around 4-5GB. Makes for a LOT more space that just stripping off the bars!

It may be a small amount on each individual file, but that quickly accumulates when there are over 1,000 of them!

[DrWhoFanJ]

MakeMKV makes a one-to-one copy of what's on a disc. If the disc's authors chose to embed 4:3 content in a 16:9 file then that's what you'll end up with. MakeMKV isn't adding or subtracting anything; it is just copying the data on the disc and placing it in a .mkv file.

DVDs, Blu-Rays and 4K UHDs are all compressed in some fashion. Each format uses a different compression method but, since they're compressed, any black bars embedded in the content are compressed as well. The amount of space the black bars take up is small so cutting them out won't save much space.

It is possible to make a meaningful change in the amount of space used by a rip by transcoding it with a tool like Handbrake. It can even crop the 4:3 content out of a 16:9 file during the process. However, it is worth thinking through the implications before going down this route.

The easiest answer is to buy more storage. Or, more precisely, we all should've bought more storage 6 or 8 months ago.

It may be a small amount on each individual file, but that still accumulates quite heavily when there over 1,000 of them!

I’m not really sure what you mean by "implications". I store them mainly to have easy access when I just want to check something quickly and don’t have time to wait through all the guff at the start of every disc (and also for a few projects that occasionally need them on the computer). It’s very rare I even need much above DVD picture quality since most of their purpose beyond the initial rip lies in their audio rather than the visuals!

I’ve already had to split this one show across two drives as it is; at least that split had a convenient and obvious split to use for that purpose! There isn’t another logical point to break it into smaller sections.

[tomty89]

Yes, but the black bars are still included within that cropping as they're interpreted as being part of the image. What I'm wanting is to have those black bars removed entirely instead.

Hmm tbh it sounds to me that the player you use is dumb / flawed then. (Or you haven't really been making it doing the right thing.) If the window doesn't shrink accordingly as the video is being cropped, then in some sense it isn't even cropping but "masking" / "matting".

[DrWhoFanJ]

Yes, but the black bars are still included within that cropping as they're interpreted as being part of the image. What I'm wanting is to have those black bars removed entirely instead.

Hmm tbh it sounds to me that the player you use is dumb/flawed then. (Or you haven't really been making it doing the right thing.) If the window doesn't shrink accordingly as the video is being cropped, then in some sense it isn't even cropping but "masking"/"matting".

The player I use is VLC. I've just checked with the window larger than I normally have it. It does remove the bars when I set it to 4:3, but it also squeezes the subtitles way thinner and off-centre, even though they're specifically designed to only occupy the same space as the actual image, as you can see:

vlcsnap-00004.png (1.12 MiB) Viewed 848 times

vlcsnap-00003.png (1.1 MiB) Viewed 848 times

Those are exactly the same paused frame; all I did between those two screenshots was undo the cropping.

[dcoke22]

By 'implications' I mean several things.

Over time, optical discs degrade. A disc you were able to cleanly read yesterday might not be able to be read tomorrow.

Optical drives wear out and are getting harder to come by. It is possible we might end up in a future where no more optical drives can be purchased.

So a rip that you can make today from a disc in your possession you might not be able to make in the future.

Making rips is a time consuming process that requires your attention. Since time is the most precious commodity we have you might not want to have to rip a disc a second or third time.

With this in mind, if you use Handbrake to transcode a rip into a smaller file and then delete the rip to save space on your storage you subject yourself to all of the above if you need the rip again in the future.

And speaking of transcoding, when you think about a movie library that you might want to maintain for perhaps decades into the future, the format and compression choices you make today might not be the most ideal choices in the future. If you still have your original rips, it is fairly easy to transcode them again into whatever the new most ideal format will be.

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Depending on your needs and goals, the above may or may not apply. And since storage prices have increased about 50% in a short period of time it might not be feasible or practical to buy more storage in the short term.