DVD player cropping top/bottom/sides?

[ember]

I've discovered a problem that I've deduced is not a problem with my TV (I've tried two TVs) nor with the VCD/DVD that I've made. I've yet to test on someone elses' DVD player.

The problem: any VCD/DVD I make works fine on my computer - but playing on my Panasonic RV32 crops both left/right and top/bottom to the point that any text/buttons near the edge are removed.

I live in the UK and use PAL as standard - but I have a sneaking suspicion my DVD player is NTSC and trying to convert to PAL - in so doing so it crops.

Anyone else had this problem?

[bugster]

All TV's crop a little of the picture from the top/bottom and even the sides. The top/bottom cropping is known as overscan.
Most DVD authoring apps allow you to see the so-called Safe area, the area that is guarnteed to be displayed, when producing menus and the like. All buttons etc should be kept within this area.

[ember]

Thanks for the help. That would account for the problem arising on both my 4:3 portable TV and my WS (in 4:3 mode).

Is there anyway to compensate for this effect or is it something I just have to live with?

I'm thinking in terms of when I rip a DVD and encode to letterbox with TMPGEnc (for backup VCD/DVD) - this means the image is cropped (top/bottom - not so important as they are black bars)? Even before I "Zoom" up to fill the screen.

In doing so I always lose side picture information, don't I?

[bugster]

You could live with it, or you could resize your image to take account of it.

[ember]

How would I set up TMPGenc to ensure side borders for any DVD rip I wanted to convert to VCD?

[bugster]

How would I set up TMPGenc to ensure side borders for any DVD rip I wanted to convert to VCD?

When you encode, you will have to use Video arrange method of "Center (Custom size)"

[ember]

Cheers!