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Answer : If all else fails, you can try Virtualdub: http://virtualdub.org/ It offers the option to export to a series of BMP files, which you can then stitch together using a more common codec. Did some googling, and IMM5 seems like a pretty obscure format, possibly without open-source implementation, too. How about (and this is really the last option) using a desktop recorder tool (Fraps, VLC - yes, it can do that too.) and recording the video as it plays in that "BackupPlayer"? Since it's CCTV footage, it's probably low-resolution and framerate anyway, so you shouldn't have any noticable quality loss when doing that. This obscure format seems to be produced by a number of DVRs that use the Infinity encoding chip. The references that I have found relate to the IMM4 codec, but may still be worth trying. The article IMM4 Codec and MEncoder describes how the author converted IMM4 video to other formats, so my advice is to read it carefully. The codec was found t...

Answer : If you press C it will toggle through the crop ratios and may help you with eliminating the black bars. Well, I should have checked VLC's Video menu as I did while posting this question... There's the crop to 16:9 option I was looking for... Anyway, if you find an automatic cropping estimation method, the bounty will still be there. Simply go to VLC Player preferences > Video (you must be in "All" mode, not "Simple" mode). On the right-hand side, scroll down to "Video cropping" and type in either "16:10", "16:9", or "4:3", depending on what your screen's aspect ratio is. Press the Save button at the bottom. If black lines remain, then they are actually part of the video as opposed to just an empty section of the screen. In this case, adjusting manually is the only logical option left.