Strange cropping occurs with dvd2svcd

[DaddyE]

OK so heres the deal...
Ive been converting several movies to dvd from xvid.

I thought they worked fine until one day i noticed the title of the movie was a bit cropped.

I then discovered that all the conversions i had done (using the anamorphic or 16:9 setting) had cropped at least a cm or two from both sides of the picture.

The thing is: When i play them on my computer. There is no cropping.
Only on my standalone dvd.

So i guess that the cropping occurs because the dvdplayer cant recognize the format or something like that? But it still plays the movie.

Is there any way that i can avoid this?

[bunyip]

What you are seeing is called 'overscan' and it is your TV not your DVD player, to quote from the site glossary ...

Overscan
The area at the edges of a television tube that is covered to hide possible video distortion. Overscan typically covers about 4 or 5 percent of the picture.

TV broadcasters compensate for this by adding black borders to the televised picture, so if you were to capture a broadcast TV program you will notice significant black borders on the left and right of the picture, which are hidden on the TV screen. Computer monitors show the entire width of the picture.

[DaddyE]

oh, sorry, i forgot to say: no i dont think so.

I have a widescreen and when im not in 16:9 that is:
when the borders of the TV is black anyway
the image is still cropped.

So i dont think its overscan as it would seem silly to crop in 4:3 on a widescreen.
(But hey, maybe im wrong...)

[bunyip]

In that case it does sound like your player is cropping the picture.
I would do a bit more investigation, like ..
- Does it occur on commercial DVDs or just the ones you are making?
- Does it happen on all resolutions (NTSC: 720x480, 704x480, 352x480, 352x240, PAL: 720x576, 704x576, 352x576, 352x288).
- Has the correct TV setting been selected on the player (16:9, 4:3PS, 4:3).