Black bars, also known as letterboxing, are black bars that appear on the top and bottom or sides of a video. They are added to videos to adjust the aspect ratio. The most common aspect ratios are 16:9 for widescreen and 4:3 for standard definition. If a widescreen video is played on a standard definition screen, black bars will appear on the top and bottom to adjust the aspect ratio. Similarly, black bars will appear on the sides if a standard definition video is played on a widescreen display.
There are several reasons why you may want to remove or get rid of the black bars from a video:
- The black bars are an eyesore and you want the video to properly fill the screen.
- You want to edit the video for posting on social media or YouTube where vertical videos work better.
- You need to convert the video to another aspect ratio but the black bars are getting in the way.
Fortunately, removing black bars is straightforward if you have the right software. Here are the common ways to remove black bars from videos on both Windows and Mac.
Using Video Editing Software
Specialized video editing software like Final Cut Pro, Adobe Premiere Pro, DaVinci Resolve etc. make it easy to remove or add black bars to videos by adjusting project settings and using crop tools. Here are the basic steps:
- Import your video file into your video editor.
- Go to Project Settings and adjust the video properties. For example, set a 16:9 project for a widescreen video.
- If black bars still appear, use the crop tool to manually remove them by adjusting the video crop area.
- Render out the changes to export a new video without black bars.
This process will permanently remove black bars and encode a new video file with the desired aspect ratio. The crop tool gives full control over adjusting the video frame. Video editing software is ideal for precisely removing black bars from complex or high resolution videos.
Using VideoProc V3
For quick removal of black bars, you can use VideoProc V3 which is an easy video processing toolkit for Windows and Mac. Just drag-and-drop the video into VideoProc and go to the Advanced Video Editor tab. Here are the steps:
- Import your video into VideoProc.
- Go to the Editor tab and click on the Crop icon to open the crop panel.
- Adjust the crop area handles to remove any black bars visible on the video preview.
- Click OK and then export the video to render a new file without black bars.
The whole process takes just a few clicks. You can visually set the crop area on the video preview to seamlessly remove black bars. The output video will retain the same quality. VideoProc performs fast video processing and encoding so you can quickly remove black bars this way.
Online Video Converters
Another quick option is using free online video converter and editor tools like Clipchamp, Kapwing, FileZigZag etc. These tools provide an easy web-based interface to crop and remove black bars from videos.
Here is how you can how to remove black bars from videos using online converters:
- Go to the website and upload your video file.
- Look for the crop or trim tool in the editor.
- Use the interface to adjust and remove any black bars visible on the video preview.
- Download the cropped video without black bars.
Online converters provide a quick way to remove black bars without installing any software. However, they have limitations in terms of output video resolution and length. For best results use the downloaded file only for web or social media sharing.
Mobile Apps
You can also quickly remove black bars from videos right on your iPhone, iPad or Android device using mobile apps. Some useful apps include:
Video Crop
Video Crop (iOS and Android) provides cropping tools to remove black bars and adjust aspect ratios. You can visually set the crop area on the video preview. Supports common video formats like MP4, MOV, MKV etc.
Inshot
Inshot (iOS and Android) is a video editor app with professional cropping tools to remove black bars and adjust video ratios. You can export cropped videos at high resolution.
Videoleap
Videoleap (iOS) is a full-featured mobile video editing app with powerful cropping tools to remove/add black bars and change aspect ratios.
Look for the crop tool in the app and adjust the crop box on the video preview to seamlessly remove black bars. The apps provide additional editing options to enhance your videos.
Using VLC Media Player
VLC is a popular free media player available for Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS and Android. It has a handy cropping feature that can quickly remove black bars from videos.
To remove black bars using VLC:
- Open the video in VLC media player.
- Go to Tools > Crop and select Crop Video.
- Adjust the cropping rectangle to remove the black bars visible on the preview window.
- Click Save Cropped Video to render and save the video without black bars.
This will permanently remove black bars and encode a new cropped video file. Keep in mind VLC cropper works best for quick removal of black bars. For more control, use the video editing apps.
Using Handbrake
Handbrake is a popular free video transcoder program for Windows, Mac and Linux. You can remove black bars when converting your video to another format using Handbrake.
To crop and remove black bars in Handbrake:
- Add the video to Handbrake.
- Go to the Picture tab in the video settings.
- Adjust the Cropping values by entering custom values or using the mouse to crop the preview.
- Start encoding the video to render a new file without black bars.
Handbrake cropping can precisely adjust video frame dimensions to remove black bars. This option works well when you need to change video codec or file size along with removing black bars.
Tips for Removing Black Bars
Here are some useful tips when removing black bars from videos:
- Pay attention to maintain the correct aspect ratio like 16:9 or 4:3 when cropping, otherwise the video may look vertically squished or stretched.
- Adjust cropping values in small increments for precision. Go up to 2 decimal points in video editing software.
- To add black bars back, simply reverse the process and add letterboxing to adjust aspect ratios.
- For best results, edit and export videos without compression. Export using a lossless format.
- For YouTube, cropped widescreen videos look best. For social media like Instagram or Facebook, cropped vertical videos work better.
Conclusion
Removing black bars or letterboxing from videos is straightforward once you learn how to properly adjust cropping and aspect ratios. Specialized video editing software gives the most control over the process, but mobile apps and online tools provide quick and easy ways to remove black bars for common use cases. The key is choosing the right software tool and using the proper crop settings to get videos without black bars or pillarboxing in the desired aspect ratio. With the right technique, you can easily remove the annoying black bars from your videos.