I'm trying to author a DVD. I have a regular DV file, 720x480, created by me in Premiere. I also have the same video in 640 x 480 format, compressed with H264. I created that file with VirtualDub, using the DV file as my source.
I tried burning this video to DVD with DVDStyler. I tried both files. In both cases, the menu I created looked fine, but the video itself did not fit on the screen. The edges were cut off.
I wondered if it was DVDStyler's fault, so I tried DVDFlick and got the same results (with the video -- I didn't try creating a menu in DVDFlick).
After a little research I found out this was due to overscan.
Okay, no problem. I went into VirtualDub, imported the DV file, resized to 576x432 (640 x 480 minus 10% vertically and horizontally) and letterboxed to 720x480.
I then exported that file (MPEG-4) and imported it into DVDStyler. I made sure everything was set to NTSC (it was, all default, didn't have to change anything), created an ISO, and then burned that to DVD, and popped it in my DVD player. Now a tiny bit of the video is still cut off vertically (no big deal, I'm sure it could be fixed by tweaking the resize filter a little in VirtualDub). Width-wise, the video is slightly more narrow than the screen, meaning that you can see some of the black borders on the right and left hand sides. This is no big deal, BUT, issue I have is that the picture is off center to the right. In other words, the black bar on the left is noticeably wider than the one on the right.
So, I'm trying to figure out why this would be, and how I can fix it.
I haven't tried burning the ISO in DVD Flick, mainly because:
1) I don't want to waste a DVD and time;
2) I expect that I will get the same results; and most importantly,
3) DVDStyler allows me to set custom start points for each chapter, whereas DVDFlick just created uniform chapters. DVDStyler also allows more flexibility to create custom menus which can jump to the custom chapters. So, I'd like to use that program if possible.
Any input?
Thanks in advance!
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I'm pretty sure that the video is centered, watch the dvd-video on your computer with a software dvd player and see how the black borders looks. But the TV overscan may not be exact same on all sides.
(And don't export to mpeg4 in virtualdub because you will lose a lot of video quality, export to dv-avi again instead.) -
Thank you for the response, Baldrick. You're correct, when I open it with VLC it's fine; the black borders are equal in size. What's weird to me though is that I tried the DVD I burned on two different stand-alone DVD players on two different TVs, and it was off center in the same way in both cases. So, doesn't that seem like it's a problem with the DVD itself? Do you know of any way to fix this? Or to compensate?
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Am I understanding this correctly?
You are converting DV to mpeg4....then to DVD? -
Originally Posted by ABKron
Perhaps get a service technician in to see if your TV can be adjusted to be more centred ?
There isn't actually a problem with the DVD or the video, it is with your hardware, Any change you make to the video will only reduce quality further than your already odd process does, and will make the disc play off centre on any TV that does not have the same problem as your TV.Read my blog here.
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Overscan has been a property of televisions since their inception. It is part of the design because CRT based televisions have had a hard time keeping the image the right size, centered, linear and aligned as the temperature changes, as they age, etc. Overscan helps hide these issues. Everything you have ever watched on TV has been overscanned -- you just never noticed until now.
Modern LCD and plasma displays continue to overscan even though they aren't prone to the same sorts of problems (at least with digital inputs). This is because broadcasters don't worry about noise and garbage at the edges of the picture. (For example, closed caption text, by design, is encoded at the top of the frame which is normally hidden by overscan. VHS recordings have head switching noise at the bottom of the frame, again, hidden by overscan.) They "know" you can't see whats at the extreme edges because TVs overscan. So TV manufacturers have to overscan so you don't see that garbage. Some of the newer HDTVs have non-overscan options. We often see people here saying things like "there's a green bar at the left edge of my new HDTV's picture when watching x, is there something wrong with my TV?" or "there are some flashing white lines at the top of my HDTV, what's wrong with it?". -
Originally Posted by hech54
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Originally Posted by guns1inger
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I don't think you realized that when you compressed the video to mpeg4 (which is completely unnecessary and unwarranted for making a DVD), a lot of video information was thrown out and is unrecoverable even if you reencode back to DV. You must go back to your DV source, and when the final project is edited in Premiere the way you like, export it as a DVD-compliant MPEG-2 file. Then use DVD Styler to simply author the DVD project (menus, chapter points, etc.), saving the project to your hard drive. Burn the resulting VIDEO_TS folder to a DVD disc using ImgBurn.
At no point should there be H264 or any other form of mpeg4 in the process. -
Originally Posted by filmboss80
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I am confused as to why you would be using VirtualDub at all, other than the resize step, which is likely causing more problems than it cures. The VirtualDub step is messing you up, because you are reencoding again, and still not coming out with a DVD-compliant file in the end. If you are authoring a DVD, your video format must be mpeg-2 (comprised of an m2v video stream and either wav or ac3 audio). H264 and MPEG4 in general are not DVD-compliant. VirtualDub, at its core, is an AVI tool -- not an MPEG2 encoder.
I want to be straight on this. You ARE trying to author a DVD and your original source footage is DV avi, right? If so, many of the tools you have chosen, as well as your methods of getting from point A to B, are wrong for the task.
You must export from Premiere timeline to MPEG-2 (staying at 720 x 480), then drop that MPEG-2 file into your DVD authoring program, with no other encoding. VirtualDub should never enter the picture, unless you are altering a raw DV-AVI clip before editing in Premiere.
It does not seem to me that any resizing was ever necessary. (Learn about the "TV Safe Area." No one ever frames their shots all the way to the edges.) Don't wreck your footage just to accommodate a particular TV monitor. You need to stick with 720 x 480.
If you must resize a particular clip, do it in VirtualDub as a DV-AVI clip all the way, and then drop that clip into the Premiere timeline. -
Originally Posted by filmboss80
The VirtualDub step is messing you up, because you are reencoding again, and still not coming out with a DVD-compliant file in the end. If you are authoring a DVD, your video format must be mpeg-2 (comprised of an m2v video stream and either wav or ac3 audio). H264 and MPEG4 in general are not DVD-compliant. VirtualDub, at its core, is an AVI tool -- not an MPEG2 encoder.
I want to be straight on this. You ARE trying to author a DVD and your original source footage is DV avi, right?
If so, many of the tools you have chosen, as well as your methods of getting from point A to B, are wrong for the task. You must export from Premiere timeline to MPEG-2 (staying at 720 x 480), then drop that MPEG-2 file into your DVD authoring program, with no other encoding. VirtualDub should never enter the picture, unless you are altering a raw DV-AVI clip before editing in Premiere.
It does not seem to me that any resizing was ever necessary. (Learn about the "TV Safe Area." No one ever frames their shots all the way to the edges.) Don't wreck your footage just to accommodate a particular TV monitor. You need to stick with 720 x 480.
(I hope I'm not trying anyone's patience here. I sincerely appreciate the help!) -
You can use FitCD to generate an AviSynth script for overscan compensation. You can open the script with your MPEG encoder to avoid any intermediate encoding with VirtualDub.
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If it's properly centered with all of your software players, ignore the display centering of your CRT-based TV. It's not completely out of the question for two such TVs to exhibit similar off-centering.
Here's a simple test: When you play commercially authored DVDs, do you notice any error in centering? Look, for example, at studio logos, etc., that should be centered. I would not waste time rejiggering your encodes until you have verified that there really is a problem. "Voting" with random equipment isn't the answer; perform a scientific test. -
Of course DVD Flick will "handle" H264 and MPEG4 because it reencodes them to DVD-compliant video streams. To understand DVD compliance, please click on WHAT IS > DVD in the upper left column of this website. It will tell you that the VOB files within a DVD structure are MPEG-2 based--not DV, not H264, and not other forms of MPEG4. Programs like DVD Flick CONVERT your source videos. My suggestion was to stay within the DV AVI realm of your source files, making no other conversions until you are finished editing. (Overcan resizing can be done in every version of Premiere that I'm familiar with. I don't know which one you're using, but I don't think VirtualDub is needed.) After editing, you would make a single conversion to MPEG-2, which thereafter remains unchanged throughout the DVD authoring stage. (The resulting VOB files incorporate, but do not re-encode, your MPEG-2 file.) Your current methods, however, involve several unnecessary steps to re-compress and re-encode the video, with highly compressed codecs at various intervals, which incrementally degrades the image quality with every encode. If you want to continue doing it your way, then go right ahead. But don't come back here complaining that your DVD image quality is blocky or blurry or muddy looking.
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DV sources are likely interlaced or telecined film. Resizing interlace video without interlace aware resizing algorithms will lead to artifacts.
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The resizing step is the reason for my using VirtualDub at this point. As I said, when I use DVDFlick or DVDStyler to make an ISO file out of the regular 720 x 480 DV AVI that came out of Premiere I have problems with overscan
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