im having issues with the finished dvd's,im using nero 7

[Beldarcrazyblade]

hi,im failry new to dvd authoring,ive been mr. vcd for some time,my dvd burner is a ND-3550A default drivers,nero 7-nero vision express 3. i was burning some fansubs to dvd and ive had various results on multiple dvd players. i put a wallpaper in the backround and some audio (which only lasted for 9 seconds. i put 8 episodes on the disc.

basicly i tried it in my ps2 first,now all three players recognised the disc and played it,but the results were a bit odd. the ps2 and other external unit cut off some of the menu,now on the nero editing screen it has two different sized dotted boxes and clearly the image was cut off at the edge of the dotted box,yet when i played it on my pc dvd drive (the writer) the entire menu was displayed and not cut off.

this anime has subtitles and the subtitles were cut off nearly on my ps2 but were a bit more clear on the other unit which is on another tv. howevere the disc seemse to chug and stutter occasionaly on my pc dvd drive when playing even though the full image IE: the menu,subtitles during video playback etc... area displayed,this is driving me nuts. the discs im using are Legacy 4.7GB 8X dvd-r's. i know i put alot here i just wanted to be thourough. thanks for your help.

[guns1inger]

The dotted lines indicate what are called safe zones. These relate to the overscan area of a standard television screen. Overscan basically is the area between the edge of the tube (and therefore image) and the edge of the plastic cowling around the tube. This area is, of course, invisible to you because it is hidden behind the cowling. PCs do not suffer from overscan.

The safe area are designed to protect you from putting anything in the overscan area. The outer dotted line is called the Action Safe area, and anything within this should be visible on most, but not all, televisions. The inner dotted line is called the Title Safe area. Anything within this should be visible on all televisions.

When you create a title for a video, or a dvd menu, you should aim to have everything important within the title safe area. Subtitles should be in the action safe area, and closer to the title safe area if possible.

Your problem;

1. You didn't use the title safe area to create you menu, hence it fall outside and disappears.

2. People who do fan-sub anime don't care about overscan because they only watch them on their PCs. Converting to dvd means losing the subs.

What can you do ?

1. Design your menus to stay inside the title safe area.

2. Search for overscan to find detailed solutions for your fan-subbed animes. Most of them involve FitCD, frameserving with avisynth and encoding with a decent encoder. Encoding with Nerovision to fix this problem is not an option.

[Beldarcrazyblade]

thanks for your timely and helpful response,im new to this and ive been looking for simple easy solutions,i just want to be able to put custom menu's and what have u and play my files. the first two programs u mentioned look complicated, i did not see an option to modify the image for back round to fit in the safe area zone in nerovision,r there other programs like nerovision(its an easy program) that will allow me to modify it so my files play within this safety zone?

[guns1inger]

That is where fitCD and avisynth come into play. Your fan-subbed material is smaller than DVD resolution. When you put it in NV it resizes it up and encodes it. Problem is, it resize it up to the full resolution required for DVD. Use FitCD you can generate a script for avisynth that adds a black border around the edges so that the viewable image fits inside the overscan area, and you get to see your subs.

Bear in mind, overscan affects everything you view. You watch a TV program, you don't see the edges. You watch a DVD, you don't see the edges. The only reason you have this problem is because the fan-subbers put the subs in the wrong place.

For your menus you have to do the same thing. Use an image editor to create a black image at the correct resolution, then add your background image and resize it down until you have a border of approx 16 - 20 pixels all around (can be larger if the image isn't square). This is effectively what you need to do with your video, that NV cannot do for you.

I suggest that you install FitCD, avisynth and virtualdub and have a play with the script that FitCD generates. It seem socmplex at first, but for the basics it soon becomes clear.

You might want to read this for a run down on FitCD

https://forum.videohelp.com/viewtopic.php?t=288970&highlight=

[Beldarcrazyblade]

will any of these programs burn the dvd's? or will i have to use another program,and if so which one should i use?

[guns1inger]

Personally, I use Prassi ONES. You could also use folder2ISO to create an ISO file, and use imgburn to burn it.

For a single layer disk, you could even just use Nero to burn it, but for a dual layer disk, Prassi, Imgburn etc are better - muc better.

[Beldarcrazyblade]

yea its just a typical 4.7 single layer disc,its just i dont want nero to resize or screw up the work i do in these opther programs

[guns1inger]

Try folder2ISO and imgburn - they are free and simple.

[Beldarcrazyblade]

yea i downloaded fitcd,and this looks a little daunting,how do i do what you said to get the whole image on my tv screen,like what do i input into this program to do that,there is all this stuff, dvd 720,dvd 708,and how will i know how big the file is when its finished? the thing with nero is it allowed me to gauge very simply how many files i could put on the disc then tweek the bitrate so that it could be just right,this menu is rather confusing and its not a good indicator of how many total files i can put on. im lookin thru the link u sent me...not finding how to do what you said though,sorry for my seemingly lack of coherance with these peices of software,its all a bit new to me.

and does it "convert" the file into a new file that u made or..what? exactly lol,as u can see this is all a tad over my head i just want my damn videos to fit all they on my tv lol. sorry if im a pain :P,i appreciate yer help

like these episodes r typical 4:3 640x480 resolution what setting do i put it in? 1,2,3 blocks overscan? 720 dvd 704? and once i have this i guess "avs" file what do i do with that?

[Beldarcrazyblade]

ive done a bit of searching online,and it appears this overscan issue is a big problem for anyone messing with fansubs,and although rencoding seems to be the answer,it appears because each tv is different there is no one perfect "one size fits all" sort of fix....

[guns1inger]

Pretty much sums it up. Which ever way you go, you will either loose a little of the edges, or see the borders. It really depends on how close to the edge that subs get. 2 blocks is usually sufficient.

[Beldarcrazyblade]

well one post i saw sorta seemed ok with me in another forum,this person suggested using winavi,then reducing the height in the programs optionsfrom 100 to 90% or maybe a bit lower then just burning those vob's to dvd and be done with it.

thankfully more anime titles are being made in widescreen type formats thus making overscan more palatable,but there are still anime's and what have you being made in the traditional 4:3 format,and those older titles,maybe some that never got lisenced here-this is the only way i can put these series to disc.

[guns1inger]

I don't know WinAVI, other than by it's dubious reputation. If you reduce the height to 90%, does it also reduce the width, or distort the image ?
Does it add a border to bring the image back to a DVD compliant resolution ?

Frankly, I wouldn't touch it with a barge pole.

[Beldarcrazyblade]

im trying what heartless angel suggests using TMPGenc,but the time for this process to finish for just oen episode is nearl 5 and half hours,thats insane lol,i just want a simple quick solution

https://forum.videohelp.com/viewtopic.php?t=155124&highlight=dvd+overscan

[guns1inger]

Does clip frame resize or crop ? If it crops then it's no solution.

Fill in your PC details so we can see what sort of kit you are running. Tmpgenc is a slow encoder, and there are faster around. CCE is substantially faster in most cases, as is Procoder. Both have consumer versions (CCE Basic, Procoder Express)

[Beldarcrazyblade]

its resizing it i believe,by putting in the black borders to fill in the parts u dont see and have yer whole image showing...

as for my pc its not a powerhouse by any means,i built it awhile ago,im lacking in ram

amd 64 3000+
512 mb corsair xms ram pc3200
ati 9800 pro
asus motherboard
200 gig WD hard drive

also when i play these newly changed discs(when i eventualy figure this out) will they look weird on pc moniters or like projectors with big black borders all around or will it "fill" out?

[guns1inger]

You should not be waiting 5 hours on that system. What settings did you use ?

[Beldarcrazyblade]

pretty much exactly what heartless angel had on that link

[guns1inger]

If you watch them on a PC you will get borders. Watch them on a TV and hopefully the borders will be hidden by the overscan

[Beldarcrazyblade]

what a freakin pain,tell me,do the newer flat screen tube moniters have his overscan issue like the newer hd sets say a sony wide screen tube or something?

[guns1inger]

Plasma - yes
LCD - some do, some don't
CRT, even HD, definately

[Beldarcrazyblade]

becuz at this point its like,well gee either a get a dvd player that has a high quality zoom "out",or get a new tv,though im not sure what sort of player has a good quality version of that feature and has everything else one would want out of a quality dvd player,what a hassle this all is lol,i just wanna watch my damn fansubs! and be able to like bring them to other places ! lol :igh::

damn overscan.....yeesh....

what about dlp,do they have overscan issues?

[guns1inger]

Let me get this straight. Rather than fix a few average quality video clips, you would rather drop a couple of thousand on a new TV that will make them look like complete crap by showing up every flaw. And believe me, on a HD TV, these are going to look like shite.

If they are that much of a problem, take a disk that hasn't been adjusted and try it on a couple of portable DVD players with built-in LCD screens. See if you can read the subs. If so, drop a couple of hundred on one of those instead.

FWIW, projectors don't have overscan.