Displaying movie correctly

[dj_humpyg]

Hi,

I've transferred an avi file (that I took on my camcorder), and encoded this with TMPGEnc 3.0 XPress, on Pal 4:3.

Now when I was watching this back on my widescreen tele, it had a margin down both sides but I was able to sort this by changing the setting on my tele to widescreen. Everything was perfect. On a different standard tele, it all seemed fine. When running this on my widescreen laptop, it had margins down the left/right.

Now when I encoded it, if I had selected 14:9, then I guess it would look fine on the widescreen tele (without manually changing it) and the widescreen laptop. But, I presume it would have a margin on the standard tele.

So, if I'm giving lots of people this DVD, what format should I use, because there's no way I know if everything will have a standard or widescreen tele.

How do the big movie companies do their DVDs, because it always seems to display fine on widescreen and standard teles.

Thanks for your help,
DJ.

[Baldrick]

What is your source? 4:3? Then make it 4:3. It should have black borders on both sides on a widescreeen tv.

[dj_humpyg]

Yes, I'm sure my camcorder has done it in a 4:3 format. On my widescreen tv I can stretch it to full screen which looks good, and the standard tele is good.

It was just on the laptops when I couldn't stretch it, and was just a boxy 4:3 with big margins left and right.

This is the first time I've burned my own dvd so just checking everything was OK really.

So if you bought a DVD, you would think it would be fine if there was black margins on the left/right - is that natural?

[Baldrick]

So if you bought a DVD, you would think it would be fine if there was black margins on the left/right - is that natural?

Yes, it's natural.

[dj_humpyg]

Ok, thanks for your advice

[edDV]

If you shot and authored widescreen 16:9, the picture would fill a widescreen TV but it would play as letterbox on a 4:3 TV.

So, you have to decide between side pillars on a widescreen* vs. letterbox on a 4:3 display.


* or a horizontal stretch.

[dj_humpyg]

I always shot and authored 4:3.

But I've just realised that my camcorder is NTSC (I never knew that!), and I'm outputting it to PAL. I guess that's where the extra black bars are. Is it best to convert (if so, anything to suggest), or leave it as it is, if so, do you think 16:9 or 4:3 is better?

[Richard_G]

What makes you think your camcorder is NTSC? As you are in the UK, the camcorder should be PAL unless you bought it in the US.

It is up to you whether you use 16:9 or 4:3. If you are going to watch it on a widescreen TV, then use 16:9 and it will fill the screen. If you are going to watch on a 4:3 TV, 16:9 will have a letterbox effect with black bars top and bottom but 4:3 will look correct.

[dj_humpyg]

I bought it off Ebay about 3 years ago, from someone in the UK. I think it's NTSC because when I'm previewing it in TMPGEnc it has a black border on the left/right on 4:3 12:11, but if I test it in NTSC 4:3 10:11 it seems perfect. So then I thought I could just burn it like that, at the 29fps, but it's all jumpy on the tele so I guess there is a problem.

The thing is I'm giving lots of people this DVD so ideally it needs to be good on all screens.

The copy I have, on PAL 4:3, you can't see do a full screen in windows media player for instance, you get the border on the left/right.

[dj_humpyg]

Actually I'm wrong, it is a pal as it has it wrote down the side of the thing lol, sorry.

The thing is, if I record in pal, when you view it in windows media player, you get the black bar on the left/right side. I thought windows media player wouldn't do this.

[Richard_G]

You always do get a thin black bar on either side. Don't ask me why, but you do. It isn't seen on a TV because of overscan.

If it is PAL, it is at 25 fps, which is why it is jumpy at NTSC frame rate.

[Alex_ander]

It was just on the laptops when I couldn't stretch it, and was just a boxy 4:3 with big margins left and right.

If you have it on a 4:3 display and encoded with default resize setting of TMPGEncXpress3 (full screen/keep aspect ratio) then you have to uncheck 'keep AR' to get rid of those borders (you can always test it in preview pop-up just before encoding). This may be different from what most users of TMPGEnc2.5 usually say.

[dj_humpyg]

If you have it on a 4:3 display and encoded with default resize setting of TMPGEncXpress3 (full screen/keep aspect ratio) then you have to uncheck 'keep AR' to get rid of those borders (you can always test it in preview pop-up just before encoding). This may be different from what most users of TMPGEnc2.5 usually say.

I'm using v3, but I can't see where those options are? I set the output to a mpeg format, so that I can input it in to the TMPGEnc authoring program. There doesn't seem to be any checkbox for AR, I just select 4:3 PAL from that dropdown. 'default resize' never seen that