why blockiness in shadows?

[fotoman]

I have been making vcd's and svcd's using various templates, but have one annoying problem.In the dark shadow areas of any movie you can really see the large blockiness of the pixels...what is the best solution or setting to fix this? other than that all looks fine...thanks, John

[vitualis]

This is an artifactural problem. The gamma of your PC monitor is probably set incorrectly, exaggerating the difference between dark colours --> appearance of dark "blocks".

If you use Adobe Photoshop, it comes with a tool that adjusts the gamma on your screen.

If your TV is correctly setup (in terms of brightness and contrast), those dark "blocks" shouldn't be apparent.

Regards.