DVD Screen Size

[moviebuff2]

Hello everyone

I am making my own DVD from my JPG and WAVE files. I use TMPGEnc DVD (NTSC).mcf. The preset size is 720 x 480 pixels. The MPG file plays perfectly on my PC and Laptop via various MPG playing softwares.

However, when I play it on my DVD Player Philip DVP642 and watch it on a regular television (not a plasma, not a HDTV), the picture does not fit into the size of my television screen.

What can I do?

Thanks for your help.

[jimmalenko]

overscan (and totally normal on CRT TVs) - the normal fix is to add black bars around your picture. Then you'll see the black bars on the PC though.

[guns1inger]

I assume it appear to be too large and you cant see the edges. This is normal and is called Overscan. Look it up in the glossery to your left. You can either accept it, or resize your images and add a border (16 pixels all round is often enough). Pretty much all TV shows and DVDs go into the the overscan area.

[moviebuff2]

Thanks

Is adding a surrounding black frame the only way to solve this problem?

I played the same mpg files in my brother's Philip DVP642 and watched it on his big screen TV. It's much better than my 20-inch NEC television monitor. Part of my picture was still missing on the big screen, but not as much as on my NEC.

[jimmalenko]

Different TVs have different amounts of overscan. Just the way it is, unless we're talking LCDs.

One other possible way depending on how "flexible" your player is, is to use the Zoom feature to zoom out a fraction.

[thecoalman]

Thanks

Is adding a surrounding black frame the only way to solve this problem?

No, but it's the best method. You can crop them out but then the entire video has to be resized. this is bad especially if you resize up back to the original resolution.

[moviebuff2]

Thanks.

These are mpg2 files and they can be played on certain DVD players, but not all. And even playable, the picture is a little flickering around the edges. I wonder if authoring them to become DVD will solve the overscan & flickering problems.

[discguy001]

This is not an overscan issue. When you drop your pic files into a timeline choose the option to maintain the aspect ratio-you should see your pictures (almost) exactly as they are.

You would see 'overscan' lines on analog video sources like VHS when you import into a computer and view (those dirty lines at the bottom of the video).

[thecoalman]

This is not an overscan issue.

oops didn't read carefully.

this is how I do static pictures for full screen. First open them in a image editor, if it supports doing batches all the better. First I crop them to the correct aspect, my editor has presets for 4:3 and 16:9. I can drag the crop box anyway I want and make it any size I want but it always maintains the correct aspect which is essential to making them fill the entire video and still look correctly (e.g. circles will still be round)

After I've cropped them I resize to the resolution of my video (e.g. 720x480). If your using 16:9 at this point your image is going to look elongated vetically, ignore it.

Then apply a slight blur (reduces flicker) and Finally convert to NTSC safe colors.

[jimmalenko]

The MPG file plays perfectly on my PC and Laptop via various MPG playing softwares.

However, when I play it on my DVD Player Philip DVP642 and watch it on a regular television (not a plasma, not a HDTV), the picture does not fit into the size of my television screen.

I *still* think it's overscan

Depends on if parts of the picture on all sides are "disappearing" off the edge of the TV screen I guess ...

I would think if it were an aspect ratio problem then you'd still see all of the picture, it would just look stretched or whatever.