Hi, Im sorry if this is a stupid question but I have not been able to find any answers in any documentation or in the archives so far. Im useing the following command to encode from a dvd: mencoder -dvd 2 -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg4:vpass=1 -oac copy -o 2.avi then gin with pass=2 However when I view the output file (in various players includeing another build of mplayer on a differnt computer) It has two vertical black bands to the left and right of the picture, larger on the left hand side. So I figure i'll use crop to remove them. If I use the rectangle command as follows: mplayer 2.avi -vop rectangle=720:576:0:0 it draws a rectangle perfectly around the video and not on the black lines. So then I try to crop it useing mencoder 2.avi -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg4:vpass={1 then 2} -vop crop:720:576:0:0 -oac copy -o 2a.avi and it makes no differance what so ever If I crop it stright off the dvd, the black bands are still there and the picture is horizontaly squashed. other files not encoded by me play fine without any vertical black bands at all. I guess there are two questions here: 1. why do the black bands appear in the output file in first place? 2. why does croping to a rectangle which does apparently not include them, not remove them??? I'm useing mplayer version 0.90rc3 on debian unstable. Also, could anyone tell me the options to use for encodeing the audio useing oggenc? I'm sorry this wasen't very consise, thanks in advance for any help, Andrew