sides cut off on widescreen format

[rayzor02]

ok........my problem is that when i play my SVCD on my standalone DVD player, which is a pioneer, the sides of the movie are cut off. THe movie i ripped was "we were soldiers" and the format was in 16:9, so through the program DVD2SVCD (following DOOM9's instructions) i created a DVD in the widescreen format. The thing is, this SVCD works perfectly on my computer, yet on the standalone the sides are cut off. Is this problem because of the standalone and certain limitations? or is it something that i did wrong on the SVCD creation process? Thanks you guys.

Rayzor

[Mirror_Image]

sounds like it might be:

overscan

[rayzor02]

Sorry.....i'm a newbie......what's overscan?
Thanks again

[wyteone]

overscan...
basically theres overscan, safe video area, and safe title area.
your tv set is configured to see only the information in the safe video and safe title area. overscan is basically the area that most tv sets do not see

_____________________
l ____ out here_____ l
l l l l
l l in here its l l
l l safe title area l l
l l l l
l l l l
l l________________l l
l____its safe video____ _l
outside the box its overscan.

on your computer you see all the info on the video file cuz the computer jus plays back the actual file and computers dont care bout safe title space, overscan etc...

on video tape there is all sorts of info there that doesnt appear on your screen because its outside of the "safe" area, for ex..the timecode, luminance, chroma, etc...mostly its timecode at the top of the screen which ya might see from time to time on some tv shows.

pretty crappy pic but i hope it helps.
jus a very basic example of what it is.
alohaz.

[LeeBear]

I don't think overscan is the problem. If it was everything you watch on the TV will be overscanned. I think the problem has to do with the 16:9 aspect ratio. DVD players don't seem to handle or just ignore the 16:9 DAR tag when playing back VCD's or SVCD's. Instead of adding the top and bottom black bars to maintain the aspect ratio when watching on a normal 4:3 TV most DVD players will either squish everything so it fits the whole screen (everything looks tall) or fill the whole screen without distorting the picture by basically zooming in on the middle of the picture, like what your problem seems to be. My suggest is don't use 16:9 when you encode to (S)VCD unless you have a 16:9 TV.

-LeeBear

[adam]

I agree, don't use 16:9 with vcds and svcds. But if the aspect ratio looks ok than the problem is overscanning.

Try playing a dvd on your pc and then on your tv. If the effects are the same as what your experiencing than you know its just overscanning.

[kikkegek]

I think I am experiencing the same problem. I just miss about 1 cm on both sides of the movie.

But if it is overscan...is that solvable? Because it would be a shame if a movie that takes you about 10 hours to convert and then some more to add the subtitles and stuff like that would not play correctly because of overscan.

Hope to hear from you guys soon.

[banjazzer]

I don't think overscan is the problem. If it was everything you watch on the TV will be overscanned.

Sounds like overscan to me. Normally I don't notice it, but recently when I added subtitles to an SVCD too close to the edge of the screen, part was missing on the TV, but not on my PC.

If you use TMPG you can experiment with the Video arrange method. Maybe Center>custom size 464x464(560) might work? This should encode a small black border round the movie, which will be hidden by the overscan.

[LeeBear]

Every TV has a bit of overscan but the problem he's describing doesn't sound like overscan. Overscan is consistent it doesn't change (unless you calibrate your TV) so all his widescreen movies would be cut off whether the source was DVD, VHS, cable, etc. His problem sounds more like he's set his DVD player to "4:3 pan & scan" mode instead of "4:3 letterbox" mode. rayzor02 I take it you're not watching this on a 16:9 widescreen TV?

-LeeBear

[banjazzer]

but the problem he's describing doesn't sound like overscan.

We may never know, unless we hear anything further.

[pigs-r-cute]

We have the similar problem with Adobe PE 9 - non widescreen PAL video camera and project. Plays ok on PC and laptop. tried on widescreen TV with 2 different DVD players, also on a widescreen portable TV with built in DVD player. sides missing on playback as poster above describes. Makes no different altering aspect ratios on TV. Will also be distributing to several parents as a kids play and person each side is not on it. Has anyone managed to solve this problem? Any suggestions gratefully received.

[jagabo]

Professional videographers know not to put anything important in the overscan region.

Shrink the picture and add ~%5 black borders to the sides of the frame. That way the borders will be cut off by the TV's overscan, not the active picture. Of course, then the people who have TVs that don't overscan (many HDTVs have the option) will complain that your video has black borders!

[pigs-r-cute]

Thanks - will see if there is an option for us to do that. There may be enough space on the DVD for us to give them both versions! so its suitable for any TV. Unfortunately when a performance is not on a fixed stage, when you set the camera up at dress rehearsal, doesn't mean that they will actually stay on the same spot during the performance1
The next one we have done we have allowed a little extra space at the sides, but it does mean everyone is much smaller! but I did do some hand held close-ups for me to slot in of individual performances - just means I have a lot more editing to do.
Thanks for your reply and will let you know if it works. I am a little confused though that when we take the picture down on the TV and have black borders each side of it and a big one top and bottom, that the side is still missing - can you explain why that is to a novice please? because I am not very technical. Thanks.

[jagabo]

I am a little confused though that when we take the picture down on the TV and have black borders each side of it and a big one top and bottom, that the side is still missing - can you explain why that is to a novice please?

I'm not sure what you're asking. Everything you have ever watched on TV has had the edges of the frame cut off (by the TV). You just never noticed before because you didn't have an external reference to judge by. This was done because CRT based TVs couldn't keep the picture the exact same size, perfectly centered, and distortion free. To make sure people didn't complain about the picture being off center with black bars at the side TV were made to overscan. They draw a picture large than the front of the TV. So if it gets a little smaller, shifts to the side a little bit, or isn't a nice rectangle, nobody will notice.

Because broadcastsers knew nobody could see the edges of the frame they didn't worry about garbage being out there. Closed caption data and other information was added at the very top of the frame. VHS tapes have head switching noise at the bottom of the frame. You don't normally see those details because of overscan. As better CRT technology arose, and now with fixed pixel displays like LCD and plasma TVs, it wasn't necessary to overscan. But since there was often junk at the edges of the frame manufactures continued to overscan, at least by a little, so they don't get complaints like "My TV is broken there are a bunch of flashing dots at the top of the picture."

Even when a modern widescreen HDTV pillarboxes a 4:3 image for its 16:9 screen it usually trims away a few percent of the 4:3 frame's edges before enlarging what's left for the 16:9 screen.

If you want to be sure all of your video is visible on every TV you need to shrink the picture and add black borders to restore the frame size. That way the TV's overscan will be hiding the borders, not the actual picture you want to see. But beware, the amount of overscan varies from TV to TV and it's not always even on all four sides. You won't find a perfect border size that works for all TVs.

For example, if you have a 480x480 SVCD frame, resize it to 432x432 and add 24 pixel thick borders to each side. On Some TVs some of those black borders will be visible, and on some TVs some of the picture will still be cut off by overscan.

[pigs-r-cute]

Hi, thanks for that information, think I understand a little now. Remember my parents old TV years ago you used to sometimes have a few dots at the top on some programmes.

We have a plasma TV and an LCD TV but it sounds like its only the newer HDTV thats dont have this problem. On our plasma screen you can select about 7 different sizes to be shown on the screen and the smallest takes up around only half of the screen and is surrounded by grey edging, which was what may question was, I thought there wouldnt be any overscan on that - but now that you have explained it I understand that there is an overscan built in to all picture sizes to get rid of any broadcasting "mess" or misalignment on the screen.

Thanks for the detail I sort of understand a little better how it all works now. Hopefully I wont have this problem again as my recording in future will accommodate it.

Thanks
M