I’m trying to add the black bars you see on widescreen videos.
The Border option is great (Shift+B) but you can really measure it exactly.
I’ve tried to do it w/nodes. (Attached pic)
Does anyone else have a better way of doing this?
In Gimp, photoshop or inkscape? .png with alpha?
render to 16:9 & let the DVD/BD/Computer display the black bars so you don’t need to waste data on black bars?
I want to force the black bars so when the video is put on a site, it has them.
Weird artistic choice, sry don’t ask : p
basically I believe it’ll bring more attention/focus on the piece itself.
Next time you’re at an electronics store, go compare a flatscreen TV with a black frame, with the one that is grey and you’ll see what I mean. make sure a video is playing.
Also another reason is how it makes the viewer feel. Gives a more cinematic feel I believe. Of course if the piece itself is sh*t then none of this will matter. I’m just experimenting and learning I could be wrong.
Thanks anyways
most consumers today get black TV’s (I didn’t even KNOW there was another color available! 
). But if what you said it true then it’s not a bad reason.
If I were you then I’d do this: since you’re not actually doing 16:9 resolution, render out your video in the format you want it w/o the black bars (ie 16:10, which would have a shorter height vs 16:9) & then put that rendered file in a new 16:9 project. It would then automatically put the black bars up for you to fill in the space above/below the video. At least I believe it should.
I do this when I want to fit an already-rendered image aspect ratio to a different display ratio – some sites like youtube & Vimeo will stretch/squash submitted vids if they depart too far from accepted image proportions. Similarly, submitting to competitions and such may have specific display format requirements – you can use a “letterboxing” method to fit the specs without re-rendering or distorting your rendered imagery.
My technique uses the Compositor. If you use Gimp or any other image editor to create a black “canvas” frame the size of the full area you want, “black bars” included, you can then place the rendered images over that using any number of node options – a Color>Lighten node is one I use often.
This also works when doing split-screen setups, using Distort>Translate and maybe Scale nodes to put the various image elements in place on the black “canvas” frame.
You even can use nodes to place the rendered part off-center if you wish, add frame elements, subtitles, whatever.