TMPGEnc - What Aspect Ratio?

[bigb_y2g]

I have converted some anime fansubs from AVI to MPEG-2 to put on DVD with great success, however they have hard subtitles that seem to get cut off when playing on the TV. The subtitles appear at the very bottom of the screen and sometimes long sentences stretch to far on the sides.

I use the conversion wizard in TMPGEnc to make a NTSC 4:3 compliant DVD. I choose Fullscreen and the dimensions are 720x480. What should I change the settings to so I have more visable picture during playback and the subs don't get cropped?

[bugster]

You will need to use the custom (center) option, not sure if it is available in the wizard, you may have to cancel the wizard and set it in the settings dialog. Give a 10 or 15 pixel border (experiment) on all sides.

[bigb_y2g]

bugster,

I can use the wizard and when I get to the advanced tab I can change the aspect ratio. I can then select the center (custom) option. Has this method worked for you? I have read other posts in the forum with people who have had this same problem and no matter what border they added, the screen still stretched to fullscreen and the subs were cropped.

Not that I don't appreciate your answer, but I have a slow system and it takes me 15 hours to convert 1 hour of video, so you can imagine how much time it will take to do trial and error. I will however give it a shot. Anyone have a "fullproof" method?

[FOO]

You don't have to do the whole movie to try things.
There is a "source range" setting in TMPGenc . Just
select a couple of minutes of the movie

[bugster]

bigb_y2g, I don't use the TmpGenc wizard (I have been using TmpGenc since before it had a wizard so am happy using templates and manual settings) so I can't really answer your question. Do as FOO suggests and test on a short section of video, or simply stop the encode part way through, just don't use 2-pass VBR for the tests!

[bigb_y2g]

Thanks for your help. I will try it out on my next project.

[bigb_y2g]

I noticed there is an option for NTSC 704X480. What is the overall difference between that and 720x480?

[Vejita-sama]

720x480 is for video and 704x480 is really for menus/stills. That's not really 100% true, but...

The real problem with converted from fansubbed divx files overscan. The subs are placed in areas that are overscanned with played on the TV. So you need to do as suggested above to get everything to work.

Unless your divx files ar 720x480 thou I wouldn't even think of blowing them up to this resolution, esp at the low bitrates most divx files are encoded at. Try 352x480, might yeild better results.

[Randall Flagg]

I had the same problem of subs getting cut off of fansubs because of the overscan. The setting that seems to work best for me is under the advanced video tab, select center (custom size). I use 660x440. It's approximately 8%.
I haven't had subs cut off on the top, bottom, or sides with this setting. And the picture displays perfectly on my TV. (27" Sony Trinitron)

I hope this helps.

[bigb_y2g]

I tried changing the setting to center (custom) 704x464 last night. I'll check the results when I get home from work. Randall, I am surprised that 660x440 worked because I thought all the dimensions had to be in multiples of 8? So maybe I'll try 664x440.

[bigb_y2g]

664x440 works great! Thanks for all your help

[musotechy]

I have had and still have the same problem but, now I know how to cure it. It had nothing to do with the encoding or even the DVD, it was the TV itself. My TV has an 'Auto Picture' function, it automatically resizes the screen so that what ever is being displayed fits the whole screen. In most cases it's ok but on occasions you can't see subtitles or captions.

Now this may not be your problem but it may be worth a peek at the settings on your TV.

Cheers