Playback of my new DVD+rw

[arena_man]

I just bought an HP DVD+r(w) drive and made a test DVD+rw. It plays on the computer just fine. Good resolution and I can see the full 720x480 resolution. It skips on my PS2 and I have a portable Panasonic DVD player that won't recognize the DVD+rw. It does play on my Apex 1200 I got at Circuit City after reading some reviews on this web site. However when I play it back it seems as if the left and right side of the video are cut off. I have tried to change the display setting on the Apex to 4:3 Pan Scan to 4:3 Letterbox to 16:9 but it plays exactly the same in all three modes. I was wanting to know if it was a problem with the player, or if I somehow screwed up when making the DVD?

[arena_man]

Well thanks anyway. I guess I confused everyone or my question was too stupid to answer. I'll try to figure it out on my own.

[lattedfw]

What is the source video you used? What authoring program? What burning program? Did you verify that you selected '4:3' instead of '16:9' (assuming 4:3 source)? There are lots of possible causes.

[arena_man]

Cool, a response. I use Ulead Video Studio SE, Pinnacle Studio V7, MGI (now Roxio) Video Wave 5 to create the video. For this example it was 720x480 still jpeg images that I used tansitions on to create the AVI. The AVI was created at 720x480 standard DV avi. I used Ulead DVD Movie Maker to convert the AVI to a Mpeg2 at 720x480 and then Ulead to write the DVD disk. I didn't realize there was a setting for writing the disk in 4:3 or 16:9. I have created a lot of VCD video using my Sony Digital camcorder to convert my old analog video to AVI and then to MPEG1. The disks worked great and I loved it. I'm just not all that great with DVD yet. I guess I was thinking that the DVD player would squeeze my resolution down to fit the screen making it look like a letterbox. Thanks for any help you can be.

[lattedfw]

It may not be a 4:3 or 16:9 setting (usually authoring software defaults to 4:3 anyway). I think you're on to something when you say the software may not scale the images to DVD resolution (704x480 in NTSC).

I also have made a lot of VCD discs and when I made the jump to DVD, it was a little mysterious and overwhelming in the beginning.

[arena_man]

Do you think I might have better luck if I change the setting from 720x480 when converting the AVI to MPEG to 702x480?

[lattedfw]

DVD standard is 720x480, so changing to 702x480 may result in an invalid MPEG for the authoring program.

Not being familiar with the applications you're using, I would create 720x480 images with an image/photo editor and paste your JPGs into those, sizing them to fit. Use a black background or whatever color you choose. Use these as input to the application where you do transitions and such.

It still seems weird to me though- usually if the 720x480 MPEG looks good on your PC before burning it (i.e. playing it with Media Player), it should play back OK on a set-top player.

I've done slide shows for VCDs with Premiere on a PC and with iMovie on an iMac. Premiere required a little more effort to get the 1024x780 slides to scale correctly. iMovie did it all for me (its an awesome application and why I added an iMac to my 'collection').

I hope I've been of some help- you're not alone though- it's a pain/struggle sometimes.

[kb5hav]

DVD+RW is for Compters ONLY. DVD-RW is for both Computers AND set top DVD players.

Best Regards,
Bobby

[lattedfw]

Not true at all. DVD + and - both are fully usable for data storage and DVD video. The minus format was introduced first and is a variation on the Authoring standard that is used to create stamped DVDs. + was introduced as a competing though very similar format. I recall reading that + was designed for set-top recorders in that it does allow a slightly faster recording speed and resumption of a recording without re-writing the whole disc. For the discussion arena-man and I have had in this thread, all that is irrelevant. Data is data whether it is on DVD-R or DVD+R. DVD-RAM is another format that is for data-recoding only (on computers)

[BerrantRyke]

DVD+RW is for Compters ONLY. DVD-RW is for both Computers AND set top DVD players.

Well, crap...

I'll have to tell my set-top player to stop playing my DVD+R's and DVD+RW's then....

[kb5hav]

Well, you learn something newer everyday . The only reason I responded with the information I gave was due to the information I had read and was confirmed by my local computer expert.

This I DO know, however, they make DVD+R(W)'s and DVD-R(W)'s, player/recorders and disks. But as they would say on this one, DUH . If one recorder is designed for one type disk, it won't work with the other. But, who knows, it just might! But, I'm not going to spend the money to find out when the disks cost around $20.00 per disk in my area.

[lattedfw]

It is unfortunate that there are two formats. Neither will record in the other, but both will play/read in the other, so it's not quite the VHS and Beta situation of 20 years ago.

[arena_man]

Thanks for all the responses. I think I'm going to take a sample DVD to my nearest Circuit City and try playing them on a different DVD player to see if it may be a compatability issue with my cheap old Apex 1200 player. My Panasonic Portable, Sharp and PS2 would all NOT read my DVD+RW

To solve the problem temporarily I created a Jpeg at 720x480. On the black image I placed boxes of different colors starting 10 pixels in from the edge and continued placing the boxes every 10 pixles in until I got to about 10 boxes total. I then used the still to create a test AVI, then MPEG and made a DVD+RW of just that image. When I played it back I could see where the lines of different color hit my screen. It seems I am only able to see around 672x440 of my 720x480. Even then my picture tube must be off center because the lines were not spaced exactly even. It looked as if the image was shifted to the right about 5 to 10 pixles.

So now I have set up guide lines in my photo editor at 40 pixles in from the left and right. And 20 pixles in from the top and bottom. As long as I keep the image in those guidlines, I can see it perfectly when I play it back on DVD.

My next step is going to pull in some actual video from my Digital 8 and see what happens with it.

[lattedfw]

It almost sounds like your TV has a lot of overscan - image areas that are off the dimensions of the screen. For example, my projection TV doesn't have much overscan, but the cheap 13-inch color TV in the bedroom lops off from the top, bottom and sides of the image. This might not be as noticeable with moving video, but with stills and text menus, it becomes very apparent. I think your strategy of trying your DVD+RW out at Circuit City is a good way to figure out where the problem lies.

[arena_man]

Overscan, I searched the forum for overscan. I think I have what I need now. Either I have to learn to live with it croping my videos, or stretch it out so everything looks skinnny, or have black borders on the top and bottom of my project. I've spent almost $300.00 in software now and it looks like I'm gonna end up using the TMPGEnc freebie everyone talks about on this site. Well VCDEasy got me started doing this so it must be time to advance my knowledge further.

[Xesdeeni]

I don't think your results are particularly extreme. I don't know if there is an industry standard, but Premiere has two "safety regions" that are for compatibility with television overscan issues.

About 10% is the "action safe region." This represents about 648x432.
About 20% is the "title safe region." This represents about 576x384.
(I believe both of these are configurable.)

They obviously base this on years of experience with many televisions, and my experiments over the years have shown me something similar (your average TV shows about 660x440).

If I'm really hurting for space (as I will be when I try to put 2:45 of noisy old VHS video on a single DVD as my next project), I have been known to crop the image down to 688x448 (or more probably 336x448) and frame it in black to create a 720(or 704/352)x480 encoding. It will have a frame if shown on the computer, but few televisions will shown it, and I can save a few bits for the video.

Anyway, I bet you didn't realize you were missing so much picture all these years when you were watching television!

Xesdeeni