Controlling Size of Display on TV

[bbowens]

Hi, I've created a DVD from a .mpg file, and when playing it on a standard TV, the video image stretch's to fit the television and becomes pixelated. Is there a way (during the authoring process, or with some pre-processing?) to control the display size so that it doesn't "stretch" beyond the source resolution when playing on a TV?

[ebenton]

Does it do this with *all* TVs and *all* DVD players? If not, maybe the DVD player that you used was set to output a 16 X 9 picture or some other non-standard output.

[bbowens]

Does it do this with *all* TVs and *all* DVD players? If not, maybe the DVD player that you used was set to output a 16 X 9 picture or some other non-standard output.

the aspect ratio is unchanged from the source; what I'd like to see is the image dispaying at, say 320x240 with black space filling the rest on the periphery.

[mats.hogberg]

If so, center the 320x240 frame within a 720x576/480 frame when encoding. The TV will always fill the screen (and some more).

/Mats

[dphirschler]

1) Make a black frame at 640x480 (PAL would be 640x576).

2) Paste your image centered in the frame.

3) Resize to 720x480 (720x576 PAL).

[bbowens]

If so, center the 320x240 frame within a 720x576/480 frame when encoding. The TV will always fill the screen (and some more).

/Mats

where would I find that centering function? The first time I did this, I used Toast 7 (on a mac), but I have both a mac & a pc....

[jman98]

The centering function can be relatively easily done with TMPGenc or TMPGenc Xpress. You'll just need to find a guide, but it's not hard. If you use other encoders, you may need to write AviSynth scripts, which is a lot more complicated if you haven't done that before.

[bbowens]

TMPGenc does the authoring also?

[mats.hogberg]

No, Authoring comes after encoding - TMPGEnc DVD Author is one app to use.

/Mats

[bbowens]

cool-- thanks Mats.

brad

[bbowens]

yikes, they're pricey-- any freebies that will do?

The centering function can be relatively easily done with TMPGenc or TMPGenc Xpress. You'll just need to find a guide, but it's not hard. If you use other encoders, you may need to write AviSynth scripts, which is a lot more complicated if you haven't done that before.

[guns1inger]

if you want to do it for free, then an avisynth script that adds the borders, fed into HCEnc to encode, then authored with GUIforDVDAuthor (if you want menus) or DVDAuthorGUI (if you just want the movie)

[David K]

For a hardware solution, my Oppo DVD player allows negative zoom (i.e. display at 1/2, 1/3, 1/4 display) which allows one to watch low resolution sources the way you want to, smaller but sharper with black around them. I don't know if any other DVD players have a similar function.