picture doesn't fill TV screen - let me back up and start over.

[ibzomie]

First, thanks to MysticE, jman, and manano for your replies. Let me start over and add some info about how I arrived at this point.

I just bought a new 32" 16:9 hi-def TV and a hi-def DVD player. Commercial movies look fine; some fit the screen exactly, some have black at top & bottom, but I understand that some movies, while they are widescreen, are not exactly 16:9. That's not a problem.

Also, please don't misunderstand. Perhaps I shouldn't have stated my complaint as "the screen is not filled". I'm not one of those people who don't want to see any black bars at all. I want to see a movie the way it was made, and I understand why the black bars are there. Depending on what I'm watching, I don't necessarily expect every speck of the TV screen to be filled.

My question is about movies that display as widescreen (whether 16:9 or a slightly different ratio), but don't even stretch from left to right on the screen. These are DVDs that I have burned from MPEG2 converted from AVI files.

The usual process I follow is this: I download the AVI file, then I look at it to determine if it is "square" 4:3 or widescreen. Then I use MainConcept to convert to MPEG2. Under 'Advanced MPEG2 Settings', MainConcept allows a choice of 'Square Pels' (which has always been grayed out whenever I'm doing this), 4:3, 16:9, or 2.21:1. If the image I've downloaded seems to be 4:3, then that's what I use. If it seems to be widescreen, I use 16:9. (I've never used 2.21:1. Perhaps I should start using G-Spot and checking for that.)I leave the size at 720 x 480, and I don't mess with the frame rate. Then I convert. Then I use Tsunami DVDAuthor to do the menus and to burn the DVD.

On my old TV, which was standard, "square", 4:3, the resulting movie would fill the screen from left to right, with black bars at top and bottom, as expected.

When I put that same disc in the new DVD player and watch it on the new TV, the aspect ratio seems to be correct, but the tiny (relative to the screen) image is "floating" smack dab in the middle of the screen with wide black borders on all four sides.

The image, though obviously not high-def quality, is good enough for the movies that I download. I'm not a stickler about quality. I'd just like them to fit the screen better.

Is that enough info? If so, is there anything I can do in the conversion process to make the image fit the TV screen better? Is resizing or not resizing the image the problem here? I think I can do that in MainConcept, but I haven't worked with it enough to be familiar with the process.

[jagabo]

You're DVD is 4:3 but contains a letterboxed wide video. You're TV is showing you the 4:3 frame with the pillarbars on the sides to fill out the 16:9 screen. The final result is as expected: a small picture in the middle with both pillarboxing and letterboxing.

You can verify that your DVD is 4:3 by opening one of the VOB files with VirtualDubMPEG2 or VirtualDubMod. Those programs will show you the 720x480 frame without any correction for the display aspect ratio. You're sure to see black borders at the top and bottom. You can check your MPG files after encoding with MainConcept too.

To fix this in the future, encode your source as 16:9. A 16:9 source will then fill the 720x480 frame (no letterboxing). When made into a 16:9 DVD that video will fill the 16:9 screen.

[redwudz]

ibzomie, in the future please continue your posts in the original thread when it concerns the same topic and just add a recap there. Starting a new thread with the same topic is considered double posting and that is in violation of our rules. Please read our rules before posting.

I won't lock this thread this time, but you have been advised.

Moderator redwudz