Compensating overscan

[merlin185]

I noticed my TV has a huge overscan when i playback VCD's. I was wondering if there is a way, when encoding, to add borders around the video file and compensate for the overscan, rather than changin the settings on my tv.

[reboot]

Sure, set custom aspect in your encoder.

[merlin185]

hmmm ...yaaa can i get a rundown of step by step for that inTMPgenc? please

[FulciLives]

Use FitCD as it has 3 levels to compensate for overscan.

Usually option 2 is more than enough.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[reboot]

In tmpgenc, on the settings tab, set Size, to 320x240 (for ntsc standard VCD)
On the Advanced tab, Video Arrange Method, set it to Center Custom size.
Set it to 310x230, and tmpgenc will add a 10 pixel border around the whole thing.

[iThinkYouBrokeIt]

I would center it with custom size of 317x216 for vcd...

because this is (horizontal resolution * 0.9) x (vertical rez * 0.9)
this results in the video taking up 90% of the image. This is the ideal way to go since most tv sets cut off 10% of the image.

[ronnylov]

I wold have an 8 pixel border on all sides because then complete 8x8 pixel blocks is encoded as black and it is more optimal for the encoder.

This means a 336x224 centered picture for NTSC VCD and 336x272 centered picture for PAL.

It would have been even more optimal to have 16 pixel borders on all sides but this will be visible on my TV (not completely hidden by overscan).

[lordsmurf]

I wold have an 8 pixel border on all sides because then complete 8x8 pixel blocks is encoded as black and it is more optimal for the encoder.

Cannot do that. You pixel additions needs to be 4:3 not 1:1

[Hyper Shinchan]

Only one little question: but if you want to play your CDs on Pc also on your CD is better or not to do overscan of the movie? I'm not expert on the overscan (even if some program make it automatically, e.g.VD2VCD with its multiplaxer).

[DRfrankenpimp]

on my vcd's i find that 332 by 220 fits my tv screen perfectly

[edDV]

If you overdo the black borders, you will find the picture overly shrunk on other TV sets and on the computer.

Have you considered a new TV, or getting the current one adjusted??

[Stormin Norman]

Go with FulciLives answer and frameserve it to mpeg encoder. Its real simple

[ronnylov]

I wold have an 8 pixel border on all sides because then complete 8x8 pixel blocks is encoded as black and it is more optimal for the encoder.

Cannot do that. You pixel additions needs to be 4:3 not 1:1

FitCD can calculate an avisynth script if you want to resize the picture and then add borders. If you set it to "block optimized resizing" then it will try to fit blocks of 8 pixels in the black borders. Then frameserve with avisynth to TMPGEnc.

Normally I just crop the borders 8 pixels on all sides and replace with black when making VCD. It can be done with VirtualDub or Avisynth. The black borders are still hidden in the overscan area. But if I use 16 pixels borders on a VCD it will be visible on my TV.

This is what works for me (with all borders hidden by overscan):

PAL VCD: 336x272 with 8 pixels borders added on all sides
PAL half-D1: 336x544 with 8 pixels borders on left and right side, 16 pixels top and bottom added.
PAL SVCD: 448x544 with 16 pixels borders added on all sides
PAL DVD 704x576: 672x544 with 16 pixels borders added on all sides
PAL DVD 720x576: 672x544 with 24 pixels borders on left and righ side, 16 pixels on top and bottom added.

If the movie is 4:3 letterboxed then larger borders can be used on top and bottom to replace all the black with new clean black borders.

[ronnylov]

on my vcd's i find that 332 by 220 fits my tv screen perfectly

But 332/8 = 41.5 and 220/8 = 27.5

This means you don't fill the 8x8 pixel blocks completely with picture and a sharp black border within a block is difficult to encode and makes ugly artifacts.

You probably get better quality by encoding to 336x224 with 8 pixels borders on all sides (assuming you make NTSC VCD's).

[Marvingj]

frameserve it to mpeg encoder