TMPGEnc and Letterbox problems

[texankid]

I encode a divx movie to mpeg and I have tried all the aspect ratios and set the resoluion to 704x336 which is what the movie is at. When I go to test the recording the movie is showed at the top of the TV screen with one large black bar on the bottom only instead of top and bottom. Any idea how to fix this?

thanks for the help

[Treebeard]

What did you use to encode the movie? tmpgenc?

dont use that resolution; use a standard vcd template and stick to the standard resolution 352x240. try converting your divx to the standard for vcd. see if that works
make sure the standards work for you then i would go from there

[texankid]

Yes I am using TMPGenc to encode. Thing is though the picture is great at that resolution. The only problem is that the display is misplaced on the TV screen when I watch it. I want to move the picture to the middle of the TV screen.

[Treebeard]

Under the advanced tab in the settings did you make sure to change video arrange method to full screen(keep aspect ratio)?

[texankid]

I have tired all the settings in the video arrange method

[banjazzer]

I encode a divx movie to mpeg and I have tried all the aspect ratios and set the resoluion to 704x336 which is what the movie is at. When I go to test the recording the movie is showed at the top of the TV screen with one large black bar on the bottom only instead of top and bottom. Any idea how to fix this?

Unless you use a standard VCD or SVCD template there is no guarantee your player will play the movie as you want to view it! You can go outside the (S)VCD specs (as in Kwag's templates), but you still cannot choose any old resolution, such as used by DivX. I don't think this is very unusual.

[hp_lovecraft]

I notice alot of DivX movies that are 704x336 or 224 or some odd height. Usually its because the movie is widescreen, and the ripper choice not to encode the black bars.
If you watch the movie on a PC, it won't care about the framesize, but it is important for your DVD player.
The way I encode them is to set the resolution at 704x480, with the screen set to: Center (keep aspect ratio), using a kwag template, and spead it out onto 2 CDs.
Your DVD player may require a SVCD header and maybe even a MPEG2 file to play at that resolution.

nick

[banjazzer]

The usual way (which works) would be to set Source aspect ratio as 1:1(VGA) and Video arrange method as Full screen(keep aspect ratio).

[hp_lovecraft]

I agree- "Full Screen (Keep aspect ratio)" will always work.
I only use "Center (Keep aspect ratio)" for the rare cases that the DivX and Mpeg will have the same framesize- Such as the one mentioned above.
No need to resample, so the encoding time is cut in half. Plus, for framesizes nearly the same, it looks sharper when not resampled.

nick

[vh5150]

you never said what type of disc you want to make the file for. vcd and svcd or dvd.

[texankid]

I am making a vcd. I am not sure what the difference is between vcd and svcd.

I went ahead and set the resolution at 704x480. Nothing worked before I did that, i tried about 20 combinations of the aspect ratios. It worked at that resolution.What is the difference between center (keep ratio) and full screen (keep ratio). I used full screen (keep ratio).

[hp_lovecraft]

When you use Full Screen (keep ratio), TMPG will convert the frame size of the AVI to the size of MPEG.
This means that if you have a 702x480 AVI, and you want to convert to 352x240 MPG, then TMPG will convert the size so it looks proper on your screen.

If you used Center (Keep ratio) for the same convertion, it would actually zoom into the image because it does not resample the size.

A good way to check this is to setup TMPG to convert something, then click on "Clip Frame", then "Arrange Setting". You can adjust the screen settings here, and actually see how they would look at the same time. It also tells you the input and output resolution of the video. I always check here before I convert.

Anyway, just as long as you stick to 'standard resolutions' like 352x240,352x480,480x480,702x480,etc... then use FullSCreen (Keep ratio), you should be all set when converting... assuming your player supports them..

nick