Menu picture size to fit the screen

[mattscholey]

Hi,

I want to make a menu for my XVCD using VCDEasy and Ulead Photo Express. First I am going to make a collage picture of photos from my holiday in Photo Express, then put instructions in text over it (eg. 1. Play Movie, 2. Scene Selections, etc). This will all be on one still image, which I will set (in VCDEasy) to come up as a menu, for the viewer to choose their option.

I want to know what size i should make the image, so that it will fit on a TV screen without being streched, or having black bars at the top or bottom, or at the sides. I can set the size of the picture in Photo Express by entering the height and width, in either inch, cm, or pixels. What value should I set the height and width at?

Thanks a lot,
Matt

[bunyip]

VCDEasy creates the 'MPEG still' menu at 704x576(PAL) and 704x480(NTSC) regardless of the video type or resolution.

It recommends an orginal graphics size of 768x576(PAL) and 640x480(NTSC).

I have used these recommendations and they look fine.

Adjustments can also be made to compensate for the over-scan edges when played back on a TV.
If you go to the 'MPEG still' screen of VCDEasy you will see a 'TV Cropping' slider bar, as you move this the 'Best Initial Size' recommendation will be adjusted. I use a 3% setting which pulls the menu in so that the whole menu is visible on the TV.

[fingers]

704 x 480 is also the default in the Nero menu, but that won't completely display on my 4:3 TV screen.

I found that the easiest thing was to create a BMP file at 704 x 480, then I leave a white space in the middle measuring 652 x 470 (roughly in the centre of the 704 and down 10 from the top) And then I take my graphic that I want to use for my menu, scale it down to 652 x 470, and paste it into the white space I created.

Took me a while to get the deminesions right (652x 740)... you could do a few test burns using a small mpg file, and creating a menu with a bunch of coloured vertical and horizontal lines. Then burn that onto a CDRW, and play it in your DVD player, and see how much of the grid is visible, do a few more tests adjusting the image size until you know exactly what fits in your screens display area....

I'm not saying that's the best solution, but it was the easiest way for me to determine how much of the 704 x 480 actually fits on my screen...

[marsmayhem]

I also create a bitmap measuring 768x576 and encode it to a still using VCDEasy. I make sure I'm in the title safe area (everything's within the 10% margin), because I don't like the idea of cutting/cropping the menu screen (and sometimes the resize with cropping makes things smaller than the original - to a point where it's harder to read).

I use the NTSC format. Why is 640x480 better for NTSC?
This would get scaled up to 704x480, so wouldn't it introduce bluryness?

I thought as long as your image size is 4:3 ratio, it doesn't really matter (eg. 800x600), but VCDEasy recommends 640x480 as the initial size - what am I missing here?

[Cornucopia]

Some people don't like the look of a pic that has been vertically resized--mainly having to do with the smoothness for the interlacing. This only really comes into play when your pic is a cap from video (or IS video aka motion menu ) and you don't want to deinterlace and lose resolution.

I've done it both ways (NTSC):

720x540 --> 704x480
640x480 --> 704x480

They're both ok most of the time, and produce similar results.

Scott