The picture does not fit in my TV screen

[eronnero]

Hello all and welcome to my first post. Now, here's my problem - I have converted AVI to VCD correctly using VirtualDub (for audio extraction), then TMPGEnc for encoding (as explained in previous posts) and finally Nero for burning and have managed to burn successfull VCD's in both NTSC and PAL (my DVD player plays both (I am in Australia)). However the picture does not fit in my TV screen! Both the top and bottom of the image are off the screen! Its too big! This happen when I encode (and burn) in both NTSC and PAL.
I have left the source aspect ratio at 1:1 (VGA) and have selected Full screen (keep aspect ratio) on the advanced tab and left the video settings (on the Video tab) at whatever the template set for what I was encoding to (either NTSC or PAL).
I cant understand what I'm doing wrong?!
Any help would make my day....er orr hell it would make my year! Its driving me nucken futs!

[easydvd]

encode at 4:3 instead of 1:1.....that inserts a header for you player to show correct aspect.


You could also change to "center screen, keep aspect ratio" in TMPG

[Baldrick]

One topic is enough.
Please do NOT use subjects like HELP ME, use subjects that describe your topic. (I edited your subject)

[eronnero]

Forgive my lack of experience in these matters, but I just wanna make sure I have it right - I have been, as far as I know encoding it at 4:3 (as the TMPGEnc PAL template does). Do you mean that I should say that the source video (the AVI I downloaded) is 4:3 aswell?
Thanks heaps for replying! Hope you can again.
Cheers.

[Umen Pich]

Forgive my lack of experience in these matters, but I just wanna make sure I have it right - I have been, as far as I know encoding it at 4:3 (as the TMPGEnc PAL template does). Do you mean that I should say that the source video (the AVI I downloaded) is 4:3 aswell?
Thanks heaps for replying! Hope you can again.
Cheers.

Hi,
It seems you did everything correctly.
The actual problem is not in the coding but in the TV itself.
I also noticed it when I started to make my first VCDs, but after
reading archives of the forum I found the answer - the TV itself cuts about 5% from each side. This is unavoidable.

And here is the question -- then why we are putting the picture in the whole field ?? I see no reason, except maybe if newer TV sets do not suffer from that defect.

If you just put black stripes surrounding your picture, you will save a bandwith from the one hand and you will see 100% of the picture.

So I cut 16 pixels from each side I got a very nice result.
Cutting means for example instead of making 352x480 ( CVD resolution) to resize in Virtual Dub to 320 pixels horizontal and 432 vertical (the ratio is 1.35 which is almost 4:3. Then in TMPGenc choose "Center".
That's it. Try it !

How much exactly cuts your TV you must find experimentaly.

[arealgijoe]

TVs have what is called OVER-SCAN, that is the normal video displayed on a TV goes off the screen a little (or more) depending on the set. You are not likely to ever see (in teh Us anyway) a TV with a black boarder. Ever noice lines of text like on CNN at the bottom of the screen may not be very readable on some sets due to bottom parts of text characters off-screen?

Computer screens are another matter entirely.

When I do VCD slide show of stills I do not use the FULL 704x480 for teh slides/photos. I create a 704x480 background, often in color instead of black, overlayed with with a slightly smaller size image of the slide/photo. That way all of my photo/slide will be visable on a TV screen.

J E

[eronnero]

Hey thanks for your help everyone. Overscan eh? That explains alot. Hey Umen Pich, that sounds like a cool idea you have of cutting it! Just one thing - I couldnt figure out how to do it in VirtualDub? Could you explain how its done? I'd really appreciate it.
Thanks again.

[eronnero]

Hello again. Just figured out how to reduce it so it fits in the screen and compensate for overscan (with TMPGEnc video arrange method: centre (custom size)). I just took 16 off the width and height of whatever format I was encoding to, eg NTSC 352x240 - made it 326x224 and PAL 352x288 - made it 326x272. Both of these worked however I was wondering if I should leave the source aspect ratio at VGA 1:1 or change it to something else?
Anyway I was also wondering which format was better for VCD's - NTSC or PAL? (my player plays both).
Hope to hear from someone soon.
Thanx.

[banjazzer]

however I was wondering if I should leave the source aspect ratio at VGA 1:1 or change it to something else?

The source aspect ratio is always 1:1(VGA) for DivX. The only reason to try something else might be if you were trying to correct a bad aspect ratio in the original.

[eronnero]

Man that was fast! haha. Anywayz, thanks heaps everyone for all your help. It was much appreciated!

[banjazzer]

It's nice when people acknowledge advice. Often the topic ends and you suspect you have given useful advice - but you never really know.

[puertorican138]

If you were converting from a DVD, I think the source aspect ratio would be different. :P

[banjazzer]

It most certainly would. But he's not converting from DVD.

[beavis82]

I was also wondering which format was better for VCD's - NTSC or PAL? (my player plays both).

It depends on your source material.

And, as you're in Australia, it's possible your TV only shows PAL.

Personally I prefer PAL as you get a slightly better resolution, the only tradeoff being a slightly slower frame rate - 25FPS for PAL, 30 FPS for NTSC.

[banjazzer]

the only tradeoff being a slightly slower frame rate - 25FPS for PAL, 30 FPS for NTSC.

As movies are usually 23.976fps converted to 29.97 fps by telecining, I don't see any advantage in NTSC over PAL. In fact, rather the opposite.

[Umen Pich]

Just figured out how to reduce it so it fits in the screen and compensate for overscan (with TMPGEnc video arrange method: centre (custom size)).

That is a possibility. But resizing in Virtual dub is better because it uses more accurate method (bicubic). Just go to video->filters->resize and put the new size there.
Then use the "center" method in tmpgenc.

[eronnero]

Thanks everyone for your opinions on PAL vs NTSC, it's giving me something to think about. Beavis my TV plays both formats BTW, but I agree and with you and Banjazza that the PAL format appears to be a little better. Cheers Umen Pich for letting me know how its done in VirtualDub too - I'll give it a go!
Thanks guy's.

[vitualis]

If you are capable of multisystems (as will probably be the case with you being in Oz), then simply stick to the system of your source material. If you source material is in NTSC, encode it to NTSC. If it is in PAL, then encode it in PAL.

Standards conversions are not trivial and can more than often give bad results. Avoid it if you can (and you can).

As for TV overscan, you can measure the degree of overscan with the PAL/NTSC Demo VCD: http://www.vcdhelp.com/vcd

Generally, you only need to worry about this with SELF-GENERATED material. If you are converting something with it's source being from a DVD or captured from TV, the original producers of that content will have already taken overscan into account (so visually important material shouldn't be cut out as displayed on the TV). You will not gain much by taking overscan into account a SECOND time except the ability of viewing the edges of your video and the important stuff in the middle of the picture being that little bit smaller.

Regards.

[wrawlind]

Hi,

I've been experimenting with different resizing methods to compensate for overscanning. Umen Pich mentions above that Virtual Dub is better than TMPGEnc because it uses a more accurate method (bicubic) of resizing.

I notice that when I resize a VCD (.dat) file, the differences between VDub and TMPGEnc are hardly noticeable. However, when I resize the AVI source file with VDub, then the picture is noticeably poorer and highly pixelated. I have tried all the available filter modes, but none seem to be any better than the others. Am I missing something or is there something fundamentally different about resizing an AVI, as opposed to an MPEG or a DAT?

Thanks.

[K2]

overscan is only 8% usually.

[vitualis]

Usually, you will account for up to 10% of overscan on your own made material.

Usually, overscan is not more than about 5%

It should be noted that the degree of overscan of the top, left, bottom and right hand borders are often not identical on a TV (for example, only 2% may be cropped from the left but 6% from the right).

Regards.

[Heartless Angel]

That is a possibility. But resizing in Virtual dub is better because it uses more accurate method (bicubic). Just go to video->filters->resize and put the new size there.
Then use the "center" method in tmpgenc.

Can you or some please expand on this process in more detail?

What I do is: Video/Filters/Add/Resize/OK/Bicubic/640 x 480/OK/OK...

Where do I go from there to make a copy of the resized image?

I tried Video/"full processing mode"/AVI/Save as AVI...but, then my 22 mins. anime turns out to be some 6+ Gigs.

Someone please advise. Thank you in advance.


"Fallen Angels never forget the scorn they have endured... For even after days and months and years and centuries they still feel the pain and hatred for those who have wronged them."

[Umen Pich]

I tried Video/"full processing mode"/AVI/Save as AVI...but, then my 22 mins. anime turns out to be some 6+ Gigs.

What you miss is the compression method. By default Vdub uses no compression. Go to the compression menu and specify something ...usually divX, some people say that xvid is better.

[Heartless Angel]

AHH!! Thank you very much!! I shall give it a try and post my results. Thanks again!

"God is dreaming you right now, so be entertaining."