v1.3.0 - Black-bar controls

Cut the black bars off letterboxed video — after looking at exactly where the cut would go.

Two new controls on the Convert page: a tick box Cut off black bars (letterbox), and a button Check black bars next to Start. The watched folder gets the box as well.

Look first

Check black bars converts nothing. It writes one picture per file next to the source — three frames from the film, uncut, with a red line around what would be kept. Check that no picture content sits outside the line, then press Start with the box ticked.

That is the only honest way to check a cut: the converted file can no longer show you what was taken off it, so previewing the result would answer the wrong question.

A check never shuts the PC down, even with that box ticked — somebody has to look at the pictures afterwards.

What cutting does to your files

Hover over the box and it tells you, based on what your own NVENCForge_Config.ini says. The short version:

• Auto CQ off (fixed CQ): files come out about 6 % smaller and the encode runs 19 % faster.
• Auto CQ on (the default): files come out larger — and that is the feature working. Auto CQ measures quality across the whole picture, and black bars flatter that measurement, so letterboxed films were quietly getting less quality than your target asks for. Cutting the bars makes the measurement honest.

Needs NVENCForge 1.21.0

The converter does the cutting. With an older one the box and the button stay out of reach and the bubble says why — an older NVENCForge shrugs an unknown option off as a log warning, so the run would look perfectly normal and simply keep the bars.

The About page fetches the new converter for you.

Also in this release

Profiles remember the setting, and a profile saved before this version reads as "off" rather than switching cutting on for someone who never asked for it.