vcd resolution/ DVD player probelms

[lews t]

I have been trying unsuccessfully for the last two weeks to burn a vcd that play correctly in my dvd player. I have an Apex 500W. So dar I have been able to burn a VCD with nero 5.5, that has excellent sound and excellent graphics.

The problem is in the resolution. My movie was created in Flash 5 and then edited and joined with Audio in Premiere 6.0, at 640x480. When I encode the avi file (with either nero or with TMPGEnc) and burn to VCD, the movie is centered on screen but extends beyond the screen edges by about 50 pixels in each direction. I have tried so many different possible solutions, that I believe that I have run out of options.

Can anyone help me get the VCD to play properly.

PS. When I create the VCD with menus, the menus are displayed properly, but the movie is then cropped.

any help/suggestions would be appreciated...

[Betamax]

Your movie is most likely not encoded using the standards of MPG1/-2.
You best use TMPGenc (last version please!). If your movie is 640x480, then it's SVCD. Load the standard template for SVCD-NTSC (modify some settings to get more quality - if necessary). Don't forget that SVCD is actualy 480x480. TMPGenc will resize automaticly. So be sure, the option 'full size - keep aspect ratio' is selected, but because your source wasn't standard size (standard is about 704x480 or 720x480(for DVD)), you'll get the result you said.
How does TMPGenc work? It all is explained at this site.

[patrickm]

50 pixels is a lot of real estate. are you sure it's not only 10-20ish? because TVs by design cut off a little of each side so that 'jagged edges' don't show. like when you record a VHS tape to the computer, you'll see several lines of 'junk' at the bottom, but you don't see them on the TV.

the best way to test out how much your TV shows is to make a still image, 352x240 (standard VCD size), consisting of a bunch of horizontal and vertical bars of known size (say, 8 pixels each). you could also use a set of rectangles inside of rectangles:

__________________
| green |
| ____________ |
| | _________ | |
| | |_red____| | |
| | blue | |
| |___________| |
|__________________|

so you know what the actual picture will be like. this pattern can also be remade as a 640x480 .bmp and encoded in TMPG with your usual settings. then you can check what it's actually doing, and what combination of aspect ratios and arrange methods do what you want.

(sorry for the crappy drawing but it's not a fixed-width font so it won't line up)

and just because you have 640x580 doesn't make it an SVCD. you can have an MPEG-1 XVCD at 640x480.

[lews t]

Thanks.

I tried the SVCD with TMPGenc. But alas, the same image cropping. I will try the image boxes, but I have done this by pausing the image on the DVD, and comparing to the Computer movie File. That is where I got the (+/-)50 pixels from.

I believe it is with the original file @ 640x480. Ill keep trying, even though there is a lot of disappointment so far. I am so close, yet I seem to have a ways to go...