Menu background images resizing

[Lord Flange]

I'm running v2.1.2308. All my menus are PAL and all my background images are size 720x576 or exact multiples thereof. However, the logs always show the following:

----------ENCODING MENU----------
TV Standard: PAL
Image size: 768x576
Resize size: 720x576

Anyone know why this happens?

BTW, anyone got any ideas on my unanswered "Widescreen Menus" post of 12th July?

[ChrissyBoy]

Because your computer has square pixels and mpeg2 has non-square pixels...

To preserve the 4:3 pixel aspect ratio (so that circles look round on standard television screen), the images for DVD menus should be prepared at either 720x540 resolution (recommended for NTSC video standard) or 768x576 resolution (recommended for PAL video standard). Therefore, the final images have to be resized to 720x480 resolution for DVD NTSC and 720x576 resolution for DVD PAL.

So in short to minimise resizing you should start with 768x576 for PAL.

See http://dvd-replica.com/photoshop/menuscenarist-1.php or http://stream.uen.org/medsol/dvd/pages/dvdvid_work_graphics.html#2 and http://stream.uen.org/medsol/dvd/pages/dvdvid_work_graphics.html#7

[Lord Flange]

Thanks ChrissyBoy.

If I read your response correctly, does this mean that if I use my existing 720x576 menu background pics and resize them in PaintShopPro to 768x576 without preserving the aspect ratio then the end result in svcd2dvd should be ok?

Got any suggestions to my "Widescreen Menus" query of 12th July?

[ChrissyBoy]

It doesn't matter what size your image is - it will be resized to 768x576 in S2D within the menu editor. Then S2D will resize to 720 during its output. So ideally you should supply S2D with 768x576 images and then the first resize will be omitted.

If you start with 720 then you can resize to 768 externally to S2D but you would preserve aspect ratio other wise it will look wrong on the DVD.

As for 16:9 menus - they are not supported in S2D (yet). You will have to use another program for this.