TMPGEnc Xpress DivX conversion problem.

[najor]

Hi,

I made a conversion from an NTSC DVD to DivX format.
The output video could be played back no problem.
The problem was the whole video has some sort of thick black border around it which prevents the video to be shown full-screen (as if it was cropped).

The source video was an NTSC DVD 720x480 resolution, 29.97 fps.
I made no frame-size conversion whatsoever.
I've looked at the help file but there was nothing there.

I have no DivX codec (the one from divx.com) in my system.
DivX I'm talking here is the one built in with TMPGEnc Xpress 4.

Anyone can help? Thanks before.

[guns1inger]

I am assuming this is happening on a standalone Divx player ?

If so, change the player setting to output fullscreen, instead of letterbox or widescreen.

Most players do not recognise aspect ratio settings in Divx/Xvid files. I know that mine recognises pixel aspect ratio settings, but not display aspect ratio. I have a widescreen switchable 4:3 television. My Divx/DVD player is set to output widescreen for 16:9 material. It outputs all Divx/Xvid material as widescreen. So fullscreen material is put inside a widescreen image area, and then sent out as 16:9. The result : big black borders all around. I just change the player settings on a case by case basis. There is no other option short of encoding to DVD so the aspect ratio settings are correctly observed.

This is the price we pay for trying to play back something for which no real, recognised standards exist.

[najor]

The player is an LG Hi-Fi DVD, it's got "DivX-Certified" on it (I guess it doesn't mean anything). I could not find anything on the menu on how to change pixel or aspect ratio, and after digging through the manual I think it simply cannot recognize anything-ratio related.

But then I tried to playback the video on my computer, the same!
I tried with Media Player Classic and Quicktime 7, all the same the thick black border still exist.

To add to my previous post, the source DVD file's aspect ratio was 4:3.

Anymore thoughts?

[guns1inger]

My standalone is an LG as well.

The setting is under Display in the setup menu. The option is called TV Aspect. The choices, at least in mine, are 4:3 and 16:9. 4:3 will playback Divx material correctly.

That said, if the borders are in the video, then you will have to crop them off and re-encode to get rid of them. The simplest way is with Virtualdubmpeg2. Open the video in vdubmpeg2, and click on Video -> Filters -> Add. Select the Null Transform filter and click OK. Click Cropping, and adjust until the black areas are gone. Click OK, OK. Click on Video -> Compression and select a codec and configure a bitrate. Click on File -> Save AVI and save your new video.

[Alex_ander]

Some players can correct AR using manual settings, but the problem is mainly in encoding.
If you encode a 4:3 video from 720x480 MPEG (3:2) to a non-MPEG 4:3 you have to first resize video for getting 4:3 pixel ratio. Better to reduce it horisontally to 640 keeping the number of lines.

[najor]

You have to first resize video for getting 4:3 pixel ratio. Better to reduce it horisontally to 640 keeping the number of lines.

How do I do that?

[Alex_ander]

Go to Edit/Filters/Resize, select Lanczos3, uncheck keep 'aspect ratio' and use 'full screen', then select AVI encoding template. Configure it to 640x480 and apply your other settings (framerate, audio codec etc.) if they were OK at your first attempt. Test in preview window (pop-up from Encode page) then encode a test clip (for a range selected in cut-edit window).
I'd try to keep the video interlaced (only if it originally is), there is setting 'keep interlaced' in Edit/Filters/Interlace filter and choice interlaced/progressive in AVI template.