Problem getting video to fit on TV screen

[hellfire45]

This is a problem thats probably pretty common and I know that there are probably other threads that discuss this same issue. However I am not sure what the proper terminology is for such a problem and thus my searchs are pretty poor. Anyway, heres the issue.

These are bittorrent video files as you might guess and I am told that bittorrent usually produces pretty messed up formats.
Anyawy, usually I get them actually into the proper format for DVD burning but then about 1 inch is cut off the top bottom and sides of the screen.

Pretty straight forward right?

If anybody has any knowledge about this sort of problem could you please give me some info?

Thanks!

[zoobie]

The dl'ed video is full frame. Television uses overscan to display. Best to look up overscan in the glossary or look here

[manono]

Hi-

This is a problem thats probably pretty common...

Yep, it's called overscan, and there must be hundreds of threads on it by now. Check the glossary on the left for what it is.

If anybody has any knowledge about this sort of problem could you please give me some info?

I'll assume you're viewing on a standard CRT interlaced 4:3 TV set. All of them have overscan to a greater or lesser degree. It's not uncommon to lose up to about 10% of the picture. Everything you've ever watched on your TV has it. Has it ever bothered you before? Maybe you're watching an anime with the subs down too low, and you can't read them all. Then there's nothing you can do unless you're prepared to reencode the whole thing with a black border around the outside, so the overscan is accounted for.

Edit: zoobie beat me to it, but since I took the time to type it out, then you have to read it.

[hellfire45]

Is there any kind of a program that I can run this video through before burning it that will correct the size so that overscan doesnt occur?

[hellfire45]

your exactly right, there are subtitles that are being cut on the right and left side.

[manono]

Hi-

Is there any kind of a program that I can run this video through before burning it that will correct the size so that overscan doesnt occur?

The overscan is always going to occur. That's how the TV comes. It can usually be lessened if you can gain access to the service menu. That's not something for the faint-of-heart, though, as you can kill your TV if you don't know what you're doing.

As I said, the video can be reencoded by adding black bars around the outside of the video, so the black falls in the overscan area, and the entire video is visible on the screen. The best way to reencode is via AviSynth, using a script generated by FitCD, with Blocks Overscan set probably to 2.

[zoobie]

yep...or maybe just zoom out 5% with your editor

[gll99]

I was putting 4 clips of a divx tv cap to watch later on my dvp-642 but since I've been playing with captions and subs I decided to make a test dvd. First I converted the divx to mpeg2 and this is where I made my mistake. The shows had black borders at the top and bottom and I said the files were 4:3 when I should have said 16:9. When I later authored the files the frames completely filled the screen and then some. I was losing part of the video height and width as though it was zoomed in. I still had the mpv (720x480 mpeg2 video files so I used Restream to change the aspect ratio back to 16:9 and then reauthored. They look good now.

Another thing to look at on your standalone DVD player is the setting for video display. Playing with 4:3 PS, 4:3 LB or 16:9 (sometimes called wide) might help in some cases. The pan scan setting sometimes bring the picture in tight when it doesn't need to.