TV/DVD player cropping 10% of image.

[jester_j70]

Hi, I was wondering if someone could shed some light on the following problem… When I play VCD’s and SVCD’s (using the MPEG-1 multiplexing trick) on my Panasonic RA-71 DVD player the image is being cropped by around 10%. That is, it’s almost as if the DVD player is blowing up the image and cropping the sides slightly. This problem occurs with both DVD rips and divx conversions, and both PAL and NTSC movies. Note that when I play the VCD’s and SVCD’s on my PC using WinDVD 4 the whole image is displayed, there is no cropping. I currently use TMPG for doing conversions and choose “Full Screen (Keep Aspect Ration)” when doing conversions. I have tried a couple of other conversion tests (although not every single combination possible), such as “No Margin (keep aspect ratio)” but the image is still being cropped on the TV.

My questions are…

1. Is this normal?
2. Is there a way to avoid it and display the FULL image on the TV?

Any input would be appreciated. Thanks.

[russwcj]

I don't think this is unusual. On programs like "dvd workshop" and "premiere" titling program, there is a guide line around the outside 10% of the screen which leaves inside this line as a safe zone. I've noticed that if I produce titles, menus or backgrounds outside of this, my tv/dvd does not show it.

[killswitch]

Well if you can get into the service menu of your TV you might be able to alter the amount of overscan !

[banjazzer]

1. Is this normal?

I think so

2. Is there a way to avoid it and display the FULL image on the TV?

I think so. You need to use Center (Custom size) in TMPG, although what you choose is the hard bit. I have experimented with this because I had a DivX with subtitles which I converted to SVCD, and when I played it through my TV the LHS was missing because of overscan. It was converted to PAL SVCD (640x352 => 480x576). What I tried at first was to to use a custom size of 448x246. (246 was detived by simple proportion. 352x448/640 = 246) This sorted the bits that were missing to left and right, but the aspect ratio was wrong. So, I added the kludge factor, by multiplying the vertical resolution by 1.6. So, the custom size became 448x 394. This worked perfectly, and also worked for a couple of other encodes. However, there are certain questions which arise:

1. What is significant about 1.6? I don't know.
2. Will it work for all PAL SVCD? Probably.
3. Will it work for NTSC SVCD? Maybe.
4. Does the same cludge factor apply to VCD? I don't know. 8)

[jester_j70]

Just a quick thank you to all that answered. Your replies helped a lot, cheers.