DVD to VCD borders

[mrcoolekin]

I have ripped a DVD and made it into a VCD. I always put black borders around it using TMPGEnc. I tested my VCD out using 308x208, 310x210, 312x312, 314x214, 316x316, 318x318, and 320x320 resolutions on my VCD. When I play it on my TV the 320x320 fits all over my TV, but with some of the left sides missing. On my brothers TV (which is the same exact one) 316x316 worked fine without any lost. On my TV 316x316, there are black borders on the right hand side which I want to get rid of.

My question is does anybody know the perfect resolution that works best for all TVs without losing any picuture?

[Fusmali]

The problem you have encountered is due to the TVs overscan area. The size of the overscan varies from TV to TV as you have found. On some of the newer TVs it is possible to adjust the overscan via the engineers menus but it is not for the feint hearted and a mistake could wreck your TVs display geometry.

The only choice open to you is decided which TV you wish to use and encode for that. If you ever change your TV your settings are likely to require changing again. The only advise that may be of use is that the overscan area averages for TVs is 10% of the whole display which works out to approximately 316 pixels across when starting with a frame width of a VCD which is 352 pixels.

[mrcoolekin]

So which resolution should I use then?

[poopyhead]

well...standard VCD resolution is 352 x 240 pixels

if you deviate, you will be making non-standard, compliant xVCD..and dvd player compatibility will go down.

[mrcoolekin]

I think that the resolution for all my movies are 352x240 when I play it on my DVD player. I changed it using TMPGEnc under CLIP FRAME>ARRANGE SETTING>CENTER (CUSTOM SIZE). I mostly do subtitles. If I didn't put the black borders all around then I can't see the words on the bottom of the screen.

[EddyH]

May as well just have it at fullscreen - the entire 352 x 240/288 frame that is, as this will cause the least worries, and programs/films are transferred with variable TV overscan in mind anyhow.. nothing important will end up in the 12% or so border of the picture so you won't miss the action Plus it won't have borders on a computer monitor or LCD/plasma television, and if you use your VCDs with a projector (!!!) it gives the best of the meagre resolution.

Personally, I usually stretch them out to the full width, and have the height anywhere between fullsize (288 for most of mine ) down to a minimum of about 160 pixels high for those durned super wide modern movies (on a PAL screen that is.. cut off the furthermost edges to correct stretching if on NTSC because having less than 160 lines sucks more than missing the very extremes). That works OK for most things. In rare cases where bytes or even bits get tight and you need every last drop of video bandwidth, after dropping the audio rate, applying kVCD style improvements etc, it's almost always safe to lower the width to 320 (or 448 for SVCD.. approx 10%.. and always remember the pixel multiples of 16!) to save just a little space for anti-blocking/size reduction at the expense of a little resolution, and about 240 high for PAL/208 for NTSC.
(eg trying to fit a whole low-motion film on an 8cm CD, or squishing 115 minutes of SVCD film onto one disc).

That any help?