Standard Pixel size on UK T.V

[Skunk141]

Basically what I'm trying to do is convert a .avi divx to play on my DVD player, I've figured out everything apart from what custom pixel size to pick to make it fit my UK TV, I've played around a bit and its around 350x420 I think?

Is it just a case of just fiddling or is there a set standard?

Might have missed something in the tutorials, the forums search didnt pick anything up so please forgive me if this has been asked before

Thanks in advance..

[Dave B]

TVs in the UK are compatible with the PAL standard. This means that the picture is composed of 576 horizontal lines. There is no fixed horizontal resolution as it is physically dictated by the speed the CRT guns zap across your screen and generate a picture.

There are a number of PAL resolution standards you should be aware of.
VCD - 352x288
SVCD - 480x576
DVD - 704x576

What made you think you needed a custom pixel size? If you are using a good program to convert your .avi file (such as TMPGEnc) resolution, bitrate, pixel size and most of the other details are handled by the standard templates.

[Skunk141]

I'm using TMPGEnc but none of the settings like Full screen, Full Screen keep aspect ration work to get the film non-letterbox the only thing that works is Centre Custom Size, so to get full screen from a VCD I would set it to 352x288?

Maybe I'm doing something wrong in TMPGEnc but I don't think so I took this from the tutorial

Select Other Settings
Click on Advanced
Change the Video arrange Method to Full screen (keep aspect ratio) if you wan't the movie to look exact the same as the video source.
If you have a widescreen movie and you want it to be fullscreen(no borders) select instead No margin(keep aspect ratio) and TMPGenc will cut it.

I've tried that but it doesn't cut the margins...

[wee haggis]

Just play around with the Custom settings using the File > Preview until it looks right for you.

[Martyn1980]

Why is there so many people who want to make widescreen stuff full screen, widescreen TVs are pretty cheap now and if you can afford a High Spec PC and a broadband connection you can afford a new TV, a proper Pan and Scan version of a film looks bad enough and thats been done properly, but making a widescreeen DVD rip fullscreen especially DIVX, looks plain horrible and i dont know why anyone would want to do it.

Ten maybe even five years ago i could of understoon, but nowadays i cant, making a widescreen image fullscreen simply by chopping off the sides messes up the film, and you end up cutting off credits, subtitles people faces,sorry for the ranting but its a touchy subject with me and considering most DVD players have a zoom function, encoding it Fullscreen is also a waste of time too.

[Dave B]

So this is a post about aspect ratios and letterboxing?

The Full Screen option in TMPGEnc does just that - it encodes the videos with NO letterboxing. If you have letterboxing present in your final MPEG then the original source contains black bars actually encoded into the video stream.

I would echo Martyn's advice about not removing the letterboxing from a widescreen source. Movie Studios go through a painstaking pan and scan process with every major film before it is available for "normal" TV sets. It involves a producer actually cropping each scene differently to a 4:3 ratio. The best you can hope to do (without doing the pan and scan process yourself) is to use the TMPGEnc Crop feature to cut out the black bars top and bottom and then crop the sides in to meet the 4:3 ratio you require.

[Skunk141]

Martyn1980: Don't make assumptions on other peoples finances, and for your knowledge the film looks pretty good full screen, much better than the VERY annoying borders.

wee haggis: It's not as simple as that mate the preview feature does not correspond with my TV...

Dave B: Didn't know any of that thanks for the info

Seems like its just a case of fiddling with the settings till it fits then, I'll keep playing and let you know the results if any 1 wants to know...

[wee haggis]

wee haggis: It's not as simple as that mate the preview feature does not correspond with my TV...

If you experiment with a CDRW till you get it right.
I did about 10 or 12 30 second segments on a CDRW with different settings to see which one/ones I could use.
I continue to use my optimal setting with great success.

[Martyn1980]

Im not assuming anyones finances, its just i saw a Widescreen TV for less than £200 recently dont know where your from so i dont know how much that would be in your money, but things tend to be more expensive in the UK than in europe or the USA, so im guessing it might be cheaper elsewhere, £200 isnt that much money and if your serious about DVD's and VCD then you need a proper TV to view them on, but this is only my opinion.

As for the Fullscreen version looking better, i doubt that, Divx isnt exactly great quality, it can be very good at times, but it becomes very blocky and blotchy up close and zooming in on it only makes it worse, but each to their own i say

[Mirror_Image]

www.widescreen.org

[Skunk141]

Well ill definantly buying a widescreen tv when I come back from Thailand just cant afford it now

interesting site btw, thats what sold me