Problem: video cut off when viewed full screen

[this select 0]

I've been having a strange problem.

On one of my systems (HTPC,) over the past 6 months or so I have noticed that whenever I simply launch a video file (using VLC or WMP,) the image is basically cropped when played in full screen. It's missing maybe 30px from each side, and this is a major problem when watching anything with subtitles since they're cut off.

I did find a solution to this problem, and that is to let the preview load in explorer before playing the movie. If I do that, everything is fine.

However, this problem has cropped up again while I've been trying to put some videos on DVD lately. I've had no problem authoring the DVDs, but when I play them on a normal DVD player, Xbox, or PC, the image is cropped in EXACTLY the same way as it is on my HTPC, only this time there is no work around.

I have tried burning the DVDs in multiple resolutions... I've scaled them up to 720x480... I've used multiple programs to reencode the files as MPEG-2. Absolutely nothing has worked, and this cropping has rendered the DVDs useless.

Is there any possibility that this could be a codec-related problem? There was a time when I never saw this problem... Then it suddenly just started about 5 months ago. I've been using defiler pack or ffdshow, but I don't recall if I upgraded them or not when this problem began.

I'm pretty desperate here... I can't do anything until this problem is resolved.
Anybody have any ideas?

Thanks.

[junkmalle]

It's called overscan and all televisions do it. The only solution is to stop viewing fan subbed anime on TV.

Well, there is one other solution: you can add a black border around the frame and reencode. That way the black border will be in the overscan area.

The border should be about 5 percent on all sides. Don't bother getting the border exactly right for your TV. Every TV is different. Even for a single television set the overscan will vary with time.

There are lots of threads here dealing with this subject. Search a little and you'll find more explicit instructions.

[this select 0]

Thanks for the info. I did search, but I wasn't really sure what I was searching for, so I didn't have much luck.

Here's to hoping I can find something that will reencode from Divx/Xvid to MPEG-2 and add a border at once, otherwise this is going to take me months.

[junkmalle]

Search the forums for "overscan subtitles". That will turn up tons of thread to look through.

The question turns up every day here. I'm tired of answering it! Here's an old example:

https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=1350407#1350407

[this select 0]

Ah. That is great. Thanks for the help.

Sorry for asking such a common question. :P