Cropping video for web

stormstereo wrote on 12/10/2003, 11:01 AM
Hi all. I know about all the tips and tricks to get a better stream but there's one thing I need to clarify to myself. When cropping the video to get rid of the edge "fringing" in DV, should I use the pan/crop-tool? This would zoom in a little bit which in turn means just a tiny bit of bigger pixels, right? Is this good for the encoder?
Or - would a crop with Debugmodes 3Dle be better although giving a thin black border around the frame?
Thanks for all the knowledge you've given me so far.
Best/Tommy

Comments

Jessariah67 wrote on 12/10/2003, 11:33 AM
Tommy,

Why do you want to crop it? Do you want it to "match" the way it would look on TV -- losing the safe zone? A small amount of cropping should be fine, but if you start eating into it enough to "remove the safe zone," you'll start messing with the clarity of your picture.
Chienworks wrote on 12/10/2003, 1:09 PM
In Pan/Crop you can uncheck the Stretch to fill frame option and then the image won't be expanded anymore, it will just have the edges replaced with black. This would probably be a lot faster than rendering with an external plugin.

If you're rendering for the web then you're probably rendering to a smaller resolution, such as 320x240. If this is the case then even if you did keep the Stretch to fill frame option enabled then the pixels would end up being smaller because the image will be reduced to half size after stretching anyway.
stormstereo wrote on 12/10/2003, 8:08 PM
OK, thanks. So this is to say that I should use the Pan/Crop and let it stretch to fill frame when outputting to web, right? What about mpg for dvd? Stretch or black border? Anyone?

Jessariah, I want to crop out the very outer edges of the video which contains "nervous" pixels that's stealing bitrate from the encoder. In other words, I would get a better stream when the encoder does not have to waste bits encoding the fringing.

Best/Tommy

BTW, here's what Douglas wrote recently:
Reduce colors
Crop in to remove fringing from edges
Restore blacks
Marginally increase luma
Crop out unnecessary picture information
Stream audio in mono, not stereo
Use Windows 9
Spot|DSE wrote on 12/10/2003, 11:19 PM
For the web, clarity won't suffer one whit. On the other hand, if the encoder sees the fringing, it will confuse the encoder and drop in more keyframes than necessary. Same goes for gradients of black. Reduce the amount of grades of black, you'll see a better stream.
You can zoom in quite tight, and should do so for streaming media in most instances.
Web media, at 320 x 240, 256 or 512 streams, should be nearly as good as VHS when played full screen if the encode is good, in terms of clarity. If the media contains high motion, web-poor transitions, etc, it won't stream nearly as well. Reduce the amount of information for the encoder to see, you'll get a far better stream.