cropped out sides in TMPG authored DVD

[hobbes580]

Hi, I used Premire to edit a slideshow then I exported it to TMPGEnc via the PluinPack Framserver. I ended up with a .m2v file from TMPGEnc and a .wav file from the original project in Premiere. I then used the TMPGEnc DVD authoring program to convert those into .vob files to burn on a DVD. All went well until I tried to play them on a DVD player.

When I try to play the burned DVD on any DVD player aside from the one on my computer, the video is cropped by 75 or more pixels on both sides. The video just isn't being displayed for some reason on my TV because it works fine in my computer's DVD player. I've tried using other DVD burning programs and even encoding into lower resolutions in TMPGEnc, but none of those solutions have worked. I'm not sure what else to try which is why I came here so if anyone could please help, I would be very appreciative as I have a personal project due within the week that requires the slideshow on DVD. Thank you all in advance for whatever help you can give.

[guns1inger]

This seems to be a popular problem at the moment. The problem is called overscan. It breaks down like this.

Your software DVD player on your PC shows you the entire image. So does your television. The problem is that television screens are enclosed in the plastic casing (the body) which overlaps the edges of the display area. There is no standard as to how far the overlap reaches. Some cheap screens overlap by a large amount, some of the better ones by a much smaller amount. If you have an editing package, load it up and enable the Title Safe and Action Safe frames. These are a guide to where you place things in your video. Anything in the Title Safe area should show up on any screen. Anything in the Action Safe area should show up on most screens, although you might lose a little around the extremes. Anything outside these is up for grabs - you might see, you might not.

What can you do about it ? Not much. You can try resizing your video to make it smaller, and add black borders around the egdes to bring the resolution back to spec. On some TV's you will still lose some of the picture, while on others you will see the borders.

All DVD's have this problem.

When I do slideshows, I usually prepare all the stills in photoshop first. I add a standard background (could be a single colour, could be a subdued pattern) and resize the stills to be completely within. The background heklps tie everything together aesthetically, and resizing minimises the likelihood of loosing large parts of the image to overscan. Try it out with a few images and see if it works for you.

[Forum Troll]

Choose the "center keep aspect ratio" option. This will prevent that.

[hobbes580]

Thank you for the explanation guns1inger. I've found a temporary solution to playing the video thankfully.

In what program, Forum Troll?

[guns1inger]

It's a setting TMPGenc that will keep your aspect ratio, but put a small black border around the image.