I have an avi that has margins or borders above and below the main body of the picture. In the the lower margin is oriental subtitles. How can these be removed if at all. Tried region remove in vdub but no go?Thanks in advance.

You can run it through avisynth with the proper script to create your own border over the offending area. I've used it on analog captures to remove the fuzz at the bottom of the screen. Can't remember the command, but google should point you in the right direction.

No need to search google... it is covered in the AVISynth docs.

Thank you both for the info. Will check it out in a couple or three days . Have to go out of town and will attempt this procedure as soon as I get back. Thanks again

I've had a look at avisynth and it looks a bit complicated for me. I'm somewhat of a newbie at this but am willing to try.Is there a link to help me get started on how to begin with scripts and plugins etc?This looks like it may take a while to figure out and as I said in the previous post I'm away a couple days. So bear with me and if there is an easier way that you know please let me know. Thankyou again

http://www.doom9.org is a good resource. If you find a sample script, just edit the line pointing to the .avi to be opened and add the letterbox line from celtic_druid's post. Then just open the .avs in virtualdub and resave in direct stream copy mode.

Hello again. I do have avisynth as part of DVD2SVCD program. Can I use it or does it have to be in a separate folder or partition to work proper separately? I have been at Doom9 and this still looks kinda difficult but like I said I give it a go.Thanks

If you can run an AVISynth script (which if DVD2SVD works you can) then there is no need to re-install it.
Try a simple script like just: version()

Do NOT set VDub to direct streaming copy. AVISynth serves raw video, direct stream it and you have one giant file. You need to set it to fast recompress then configure your desired codec.

Your script is just:
avisource("whatever.avi")
Letterbox(0,bottom,0,0)

Only thing that you need to change is whatever.avi to the real avi and bottom to whatever value is required like say 16 or 32.

I advise using direct stream copy without knowing his preference for encoder/technique. @crazypete: if that is your normal preference, then by all means, do fast recompress with your codec of choice within vdub. But if you like to use xvid w/ auto gk for example, (or nero or tmpegenc or cce or anything else you might use) then save in vdub uncompressed or at least with a lossless codec. No reason to compress twice and lose quality.

If you want to use something else to encode or whatever then why open it in VDub in the first place?

Also if you left it default then it would be RAW RGB24, which seeing how the original is most likely YV12 you would actually be losing quality anyway.

Thanks again for your info but this all seems way above me. Ive never done scripting before. DVD2SVCD does it for me. Import the avi and dvd2svcd pretty well does the rest , scripting included.I tried a simple script like avisource("mymovie.avi") in notepad and saved it as a .avs file then tried to open it but none of my players would play it???Is that what I am supposed to do. Sorry for sounding like a complete newb but this all kinda new to me . I usually use tmpeg for encoding but also use dvd2svcd from time to time. I can use some simple vdub routines like extracting audio, spitting and joining avi"s and tried region remove plugin with decent success but it takes a lot of tries and reading alot of terminallogy ,that I don't understand ,at first. I'll give it another go tonight time permitting and report back asap. Thanks again

Sorry. But I cannot get this to work. I checked my system32 folder and the avisynth.dll file is there so I assume that the scripting should work.When I try and open the .avs file in vdub I get this error message- AVIsource open failure- avisource autodetect:couldn't open file-Error code 2- (d:\encoded movies\robo.avs,line1) . This is a bit frustrating and I don't want all you wonderful people to spend too much time on this.If you have any ideas I'll give it one last go. Thank you in advance

Means that it couldn't find the avi. If the script is in the same directory as the avi then avisource("whatever.avi") should work, that is if the avi is named whatever.avi otherwise you need to specify the full path so avisource("f:\ull path\whatever.avi")

AVISynth is pretty good with errors if it was a problem with the audio or video codec it would say.

Hello again. I finally got it to work? Don't really know why it wouldn't before. I cut a 2 min piece of the file for testing purposes.Wrote out the script in the same folder as the avi, opened it in vdub and after a few number changes in the script- avisource("d:\encoded movies\robo.avi") next line-letterbox(0,50,0,0) voila the subtitles are gone.Go figure. Now there seems to be some question as how to process the avi. Direct stream copy or fast recompress. I use tmpege to encode. I strip out the audio with vdub and save wave then convert to ac3 with ffmpeg or besweet then encode video only in tmpege then author with tmpeg author. If any of this sways your decision as to what process to use in vdub I'd be grateful for your input. As always thank you very much.

Forget about VDub. TMPGEnc accepts AVS files as input itself. If you use Express you can have it encode the audio to AC3. If you want to keep using ffMPEG, then I would use AVS2WAV to decode the script or just save out a wav with VDub, might also be possible to use the version of ffmpeg modified to handle avisynth scripts.

For TMPGEnc 2.5.x you might want to add converttoRGB24() as if I recall correctly v2.5.x prefers RGB24 input. You could have just use VDub to remove the subs, seeing as how you are going to have to convert to RGB anyway. Just open the file. Set to full processing. Use the Fill filter to remove the sub section and then frameserve to TMPGEnc.

If you don't want audio in the AVS file then add killaudio() or change avisource("whatever.avi") to avisource("whatever.avi",false)

Just finished burning the encoded avi and everything looks just great. When I initially encoded just the video and stripped the audio with vdub and converted to ac3 , then authored with Tmpeg the audio gradually got out of sync more and more as the flic progressed even though the original avi was fine, so I just wrote out the script like you said again and encoded both audio and video at the same time in tmpeg2.5 and all came out fine. Thank you all for your help. It was most welcome. This forum is the best

hello, i was wondering particularly if i could get hold of crazypete! i consider myself waynewbie after i checked out avisynth, but am also eager to try this method. if anybody feels like spending some time on me i'd be so very grateful, as for my dilemma, i am nearly precisely in the same boat as pete was, except worse, for i still can't understand what to do after reading this thread, but i am a fast learner, i swear! i have been to videohelp, tried virtualdub mod and so forth and i am stuck stuck stuck. thanx for your time!