Source is 320, VCD uses 352. Need TMPGEnc advice please.

[midflinx]

I'm kinda confused because my video is 320x240, but VCD resolution is 352x240. Using TMPGEnc's different options I can stretch the video to fill that and hope it appears in a 4:3 ratio again on a TV screen. Or I can not stretch it and risk the people looking like sticks on the screen. I'm thinking since SVCD is 480x480 but it gets stretched properly I ought to stretch the 320 into 352 and it'll have the correct aspect ration on the screen. The difference in ratio is 1.466666 vs. 1.333333 and yes it is noticeable on my computer. I have no way to test this since I don't have a VCD or DVD player other than my computer drive. I need this to for a friends DVD player. Do I chose "center (custom size)" and specify 320x240 which leaves vertical black bars, or do I pick "full screen" or "full screen (maintain aspect ratio)"?

[fmctm1sw]

I'm kinda confused because my video is 320x240, but VCD resolution is 352x240. Using TMPGEnc's different options I can stretch the video to fill that and hope it appears in a 4:3 ratio again on a TV screen. Or I can not stretch it and risk the people looking like sticks on the screen. I'm thinking since SVCD is 480x480 but it gets stretched properly I ought to stretch the 320 into 352 and it'll have the correct aspect ration on the screen. The difference in ratio is 1.466666 vs. 1.333333 and yes it is noticeable on my computer. I have no way to test this since I don't have a VCD or DVD player other than my computer drive. I need this to for a friends DVD player. Do I chose "center (custom size)" and specify 320x240 which leaves vertical black bars, or do I pick "full screen" or "full screen (maintain aspect ratio)"?

I don't recommend you cap at anything by 240. I'd cap at 352x480 and convert to VCD or cap at 480x480 and convert to SVCD. Read the "How to" guides on this site.

[midflinx]

Unfortunately I'm stuck with 320x240. I can't get any higher. In light of that, if I want to preserve the aspect ratio, do I go stretch it to fill the screen or have vertical black bars?

[banjazzer]

You don't need to do anything to correct the resolution, provided it plays on your PC correctly. There is no advantage in using an SVCD template, since the resolution is so small. Choose a VCD template to match the framerate. Choose Source aspect ratio=1:1 (VGA) and Video arrange method=Full Screen (Keep aspect ratio).

[Anonymous65]

All encoders will force the correct 352x240 VCD resolution whatever you feed it. Your 320x240 video will be resized to 352x240 and encoded to VCD during the mpeg-1 encoding process. Tmpegenc is the best free encoder for VCD encoding. Just remember that your 320x240 video will look rather poor compared to a VCD made by a 720x480 captured video.

[midflinx]

Thanks all for your insight. banjazzer, I took your advice and used "full screen (maintain aspect ratio)" and it works great. There's two black vertical bars because there are 32 extra pixels, but the ratio is still 4:3 like I want it.