How to author a FULL screen DVD?

[reesewomp]

Hi there,

I'm new the forum,

I'm making a slideshow video for someone and I'm using the movie maker on Windows XP.

I've played certain DVD's before which have played full screen and not stretched etc,

What video dimensions do I need to work in to create a full screen dvd that will play full screen everywhere? Whenever I export at 720 x 576 PAL it comes out square and not full screen?

Is it possible to have FULL screen display on a DVD? Or does it depend on what it's being viewed on?

For example if I play a 720 x 576 DVD on a old school 4;3 square TV will it letterbox the image but if I play a
720 x 576 DVD on a widescreen does it fill the whole screen?

Can someone please explain this and give me clarity?

Thanks in advance.

[hech54]

If you are talking about a slideshow DVD of photos....do you expect a portrait photo to also fill the screen?

[davexnet]

Both 4x3 and 16x9 (widescreen) are 720x576. The way that it's displayed and set on the DVD
has to do with the settings chosen during the encoding and the authoring.


Don't forget, some movies are wider that the modern (16x9) TV, so when displayed back with proper aspect ratio,
there is letterboxing top and bottom. A small amount on 16x9 TV's Vs. quite a bit on 4x3 TV's.

Similarly, old TV shows and some old movies are 1.333 aspect ratio. Assuming they're correctly encoded and authored
(at the 4x3 setting), they'll play with bars at the side (pillar boxing) on W/S TV's - and of course,
on the old "square" TV's they fill the whole screen.

Hope this helps.

PS in DVD-speak "full screen" used to refer to movies formatted for the old "square" TV,
but you're using it in another way.

[reesewomp]

They aren't portraits of people, they are nature photos, why?

I'm hoping to get all the photos to be displayed like this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EaZf3UZb6EU

[reesewomp]

Both 4x3 and 16x9 (widescreen) are 720x576. The way that it's displayed and set on the DVD
has to do with the settings chosen during the encoding and the authoring.


Don't forget, some movies are wider that the modern (16x9) TV, so when displayed back with proper aspect ratio,
there is letterboxing top and bottom. A small amount on 16x9 TV's Vs. quite a bit on 4x3 TV's.

Similarly, old TV shows and some old movies are 1.333 aspect ratio. Assuming they're correctly encoded and authored
(at the 4x3 setting), they'll play with bars at the side (pillar boxing) on W/S TV's - and of course,
on the old "square" TV's they fill the whole screen.

Hope this helps.

PS in DVD-speak "full screen" used to refer to movies formatted for the old "square" TV,
but you're using it in another way.

THANK YOU! That makes things a little clearer,

So when I export at 720x576 how come it comes up in VLC like a square and doesn't fill the whole screen?

Thanks for the definition about full screen also

[hech54]

They aren't portraits of people, they are nature photos, why?

My point is that none of my 4 cameras and none of my past cameras had the exact ratio(s) of anything resembling DVD, TV or "video in general" as far as photos go.....that's all I'm saying. Eliminating black bars completely in every circumstance is not going to happen.

[manono]

PS in DVD-speak "full screen" used to refer to movies formatted for the old "square" TV,
but you're using it in another way.

Funny how times have changed, eh?

Make sure your pictures are in some 1.78:1 ratio, one such as 1024x576, perhaps by cropping. Resize them all to 720x576. Encode for 16:9.

Whenever I export at 720 x 576 PAL it comes out square and not full screen?

Maybe you're encoding for 4:3? Either that or you're just examining the 720x576 image before being resized for playback.

[reesewomp]

Thanks so much for the info,

Ok that all makes perfect sense so if I resize them all to the PAL video size of 720 x 576 then this will eliminate the bars like the YouTube slideshow video example I posted?

[reesewomp]

Just resized the pictures to 720 x 576, changed the aspect ratio to 16:9 and exported in 720 x 576 and it still come out square and doesn't fill my whole screen...

What am I doing wrong, I've checked the settings over and over?

[manono]

Ok that all makes perfect sense so if I resize them all to the PAL video size of 720 x 576 then this will eliminate the bars like the YouTube slideshow video example I posted?

Yes, if they're at some 1.78:1 (sometimes said as 16:9) aspect ratio to begin with.

Just resized the pictures to 720 x 576, changed the aspect ratio to 16:9 and exported in 720 x 576 and it still come out square and doesn't fill my whole screen...

What am I doing wrong, I've checked the settings over and over?

You haven't yet encoded them for DVD, have you? People look very tall and then, or the landscape is squished horizontally? That's the way they're supposed to look. Once you encode for 16:9 in your MPEG-2 encoder, then they'll get resized during playback and look 'normal'. Here, read this:

http://www.doom9.org/aspectratios.htm

[noemi7]

If your pictures were taken in the standard 4:3 mode and you want to display them in wider 16:9 frame aspect ratio, you need to cut some areas to show them correctly. Also you need a graphic program which is capable to differentiate between square and rectangular pixels, like Photoshop. Otherwise they will look stretched.

[reesewomp]

Ok that all makes perfect sense so if I resize them all to the PAL video size of 720 x 576 then this will eliminate the bars like the YouTube slideshow video example I posted?

Yes, if they're at some 1.78:1 (sometimes said as 16:9) aspect ratio to begin with.

Just resized the pictures to 720 x 576, changed the aspect ratio to 16:9 and exported in 720 x 576 and it still come out square and doesn't fill my whole screen...

What am I doing wrong, I've checked the settings over and over?

You haven't yet encoded them for DVD, have you? People look very tall and then, or the landscape is squished horizontally? That's the way they're supposed to look. Once you encode for 16:9 in your MPEG-2 encoder, then they'll get resized during playback and look 'normal'. Here, read this:

http://www.doom9.org/aspectratios.htm

OH man! You are a LEGEND! This is CLARITY!

Thank you brother, this is such great information!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!

[reesewomp]

If your pictures were taken in the standard 4:3 mode and you want to display them in wider 16:9 frame aspect ratio, you need to cut some areas to show them correctly. Also you need a graphic program which is capable to differentiate between square and rectangular pixels, like Photoshop. Otherwise they will look stretched.

I don't have Photoshop, do you know of any free tool that can batch re-size images and separate square and rectangle based pixels?

[sanlyn]

You're using and making DVD, which is standard definition video that will play at either 16:9 aspect ratio or at 4:3 aspect ratio. Those are the only two aspect ratios that are possible with DVD. The pixels in an encoded standard definition video are not square pixels; they are rectangles. With 720x576 PAL DVD, the pixels are taller than they are wide. With 720x480 NTSC DVD, the pixels are wider than they are tall. When a player plays the DVD video it resizes the pixels to the correct ratios for the device on which you view them. In this case we're talking about physical pixel dimensions, not displayed image dimensions.

When you create images on a PC screen, that PC monitor uses square pixels, not rectangles. If you have a PAL DVD source and you copy that encoded 720x576 rectangular-pixel video to your computer and/or play it with a media player, your media player will play that video the way your TV does: it will examine the display aspect ratio (4:3 or 16:9) and display the video with the proper pixel size, the way your TV does. If you open that same 720x576 rectangular-pixel video in most editors, the editor will display the rectangular pixels in their encoded physical size -- i.e., the editor will take pixels that are higher than they are wide and will display them that way (looking tall and/or squished) unless you set your editor's viewing screen to display at the video's display ratio rather than the video's native pixel ratio. If you open that video in VirtualDub, you will see a 720x576 PAL image with pixels that look like higher-than-wide rectangles. If you want to see that video displayed at the proper display aspect ratio in VirtualDub, right-click on the VDub image pane to get a display menu and choose 16:9 or 4:3 to see the video as it will be displayed on TV or in a media player.

When you create new images on your computer or import photos to a PC, you are working with square pixels. To create images for PAL DVD on your PC:
An image that you want to display at its correct, original image ratio of 4:3 would be created at 768x576.
An image that you want to display at its correct, original image ratio of 16:9 would be created at 1024x576.

For encoding to DVD, resize either of those images to 720x576 and encode for PAL DVD, specifying the appropriate display aspect ratio (which can only be 16:9 or 4:3).

[manono]

With 720x480 NTSC DVD, the pixels are wider than they are tall.

Nice post, but for accuracy's sake that's true only for NTSC 4:3. For NTSC 16:9 the pixels are taller than they are wide. People also look tall and skinny, just as in PAL 16:9 but not as much.

[sanlyn]

If your pictures were taken in the standard 4:3 mode and you want to display them in wider 16:9 frame aspect ratio, you need to cut some areas to show them correctly. Also you need a graphic program which is capable to differentiate between square and rectangular pixels, like Photoshop. Otherwise they will look stretched.

I don't have Photoshop, do you know of any free tool that can batch re-size images and separate square and rectangle based pixels?

Photos are imported to a PC as square pixels. They display on a PC properly, at their original size and proportion, not stretched. You don't need an image program to separate square or rectangular pixels from photos. Work on them as square pixels, sizing them as explained in the previous post. When encoding for DVD, resize to 720x576 for encoding (some encoders will do this for you, some won't).

If you have images that are neither perfectly 4:3 in size nor 16:9, you have to take steps in square-pixel work so that they will not be stretched, squished or distorted when they go to DVD. For example, many digital cameras create photos in a 5:4 size. That photo will not display properly as either 4:3 or 16:9. On a 4:3 display, the 5:4 photo will be squished. On a 16x9 display, it will display as squished with side pillars if it is encoded at 4:3, or will be stretched if encoded as 16:9.

There are two ways to make the image display properly if you encode at 16:9. One way is to enlarge the picture so that it fully covers a 1240x576 frame. You will have to crop either the top and bottom, or the sides, or crop all 4 sides to attain that size 1240x576 frame without distorting the image on a 16x9 display. If you enlarge and then crop, you'll lose much of the top and bottom and a great deal more of the sides.

To display the entire image on a 16x9 screen without distorting or cropping it, you have to resize the 5:4 image so that it will fit inside a 1240x576 frame, with side borders to fill in the edges that don't completely fill the frame. You already know that the desired height of the 5:4 image will be 576 pixels. How do you get the correct width? Well, 5:4 is the same ratio as 1.25:1 (divide 5 by 4. The answer is 1.25). These aspect ratios show the width first, related to the height (the height is always considered as the "1"). To get the correct width, multiply the 576 height by 1.25 = 720. Yes, I know: that's the same frame size as PAL DVD. But these are square pixels, not rectangles. To complete the 1240x576 frame, you add 520 side border pixels (that's 260 black pixels on each side). You now have a 720x576 image of square pixels inside a frame of 1240x576 square pixels, and you've lost nothing of the original photo. The last step? Resize the entire frame to 720x576, and encode for 16:9 display. The original 5:4 image will display with no cropping or distortion on a 16x9 screen, with black side pillars. If you didn't include the side borders in your original composition, your image would be distorted (stretched) on a 16x9 TV.

Whoever came up with this square-vs-non-square polka has to be a cad of epic proportions. But that's the way it is.

[manono]

One way is to enlarge the picture so that it fully covers a 1240x576 frame.

Hehe, you're getting sloppy in your old age. Or dyslexic (same numbers differently arranged).

Make sure your pictures are in some 1.78:1 ratio, one such as 1024x576, perhaps by cropping. Resize them all to 720x576. Encode for 16:9.

1240/576=2.15:1

[sanlyn]

OOOOOOOOOPS ! I'll correct that. Thanks.

[reesewomp]

I don't get the adding black pixels on the sides?

Thanks for the info though, it's gold.

So do I just resize using something like Photoshop to 1240x576 and voila?

Why would I make the images 720x576? Or do I encode at that size but have the images at 1240x576?

[sanlyn]

If you want to create an image that will display at 16:9, the created image should be 1024x576. In case you haven't figured it out, 1024x576 is a 16:9 image. That image will be encoded at 720x576 and flagged for a 16:9 display aspect ratio.

[reesewomp]

If you want to create an image that will display at 16:9, the created image should be 1024x576. In case you haven't figured it out, 1024x576 is a 16:9 image. That image will be encoded at 720x576 and flagged for a 16:9 display aspect ratio.

This! ^

I think I get it now, sorry for any frustration I've caused you.

[manono]

Don't use MovieMaker. Maybe try DVD Slideshow GUI which will do a lot of the heavy lifting for you. There are also a ton of guides to its use. Just scroll down a ways on its page here.

[sanlyn]

I think I get it now, sorry for any frustration I've caused you.

No need to apologize. I wish I still had some of the hair I lost trying to solve these sizing problems in my own head.

[reesewomp]

I think I get it now, sorry for any frustration I've caused you.

No need to apologize. I wish I still had some of the hair I lost trying to solve these sizing problems in my own head.

Haha yeah it's pretty frustrating!

Thanks heaps though Sanlyn, I just exported a test run of photos with all your rips and it worked flawlessly!

It came out all squished, then I changed the aspect ratio to 16:9 and boom! FULL SCREEN/FULL COVERAGE whatever you want to call it worked!

If only I had known about the dvd having the flagging process embedded into the dvd structure of things!

Only thing now is that Movie Maker has rubbish transitions and the custom ones I downloaded come out all glitchy, I downloaded the movie maker a poster recommended so I'll have a look into it, I hope it's easy to use.

Is there a movie maker as simple as movie maker for windows that works on a low cpu? I have a pretty bad computer at the moment, long story.

[sanlyn]

Only thing now is that Movie Maker has rubbish transitions and the custom ones I downloaded come out all glitchy, I downloaded the movie maker a poster recommended so I'll have a look into it, I hope it's easy to use.

Is there a movie maker as simple as movie maker for windows that works on a low cpu? I have a pretty bad computer at the moment, long story.

Admittedly a slow PC isn't the most convenient tool, but in the past I made a ton of DVD's with a 2001 Dell PC, the original XP SP1, and free software from videohelp. In any case we wouldn't recommend Movie Maker. For anything. Try manono's suggestion from post #22:

Don't use MovieMaker. Maybe try DVD Slideshow GUI which will do a lot of the heavy lifting for you. There are also a ton of guides to its use. Just scroll down a ways on its page here.

https://www.videohelp.com/tools/DVD-slideshow-GUI . There are some guides here: https://www.videohelp.com/tools/DVD-slideshow-GUI#guides

The last slide show I made circa 2008 was from photos we took in the UK. I used GIMP, Avisynth and VirtualDub plugins, and some paid encoding and authoring software from TMPGenc (some of it from 2004 -- but there are also freebies that will do the trick, and which I've also used to the hilt for "regular" movies). The very pricey stuff is OK, but even there you have limitations that only Avisynth and some free tools can work around. But all that is another story that takes time and patience.

[reesewomp]

Thanks so much I think I'm ready to roll!

Any editing/creative tips regarding the pan/zoom effect while I'm at it?

[smrpix]

It looks less mechanical to always use pan AND zoom rather than just one or the other. Subtlety is key.
When going from a hold to a move (or vice versa) use a spline acceleration rather than linear.

That's about it.

[sanlyn]

Considering the sample you linked to in the earlier post, I'd say the transitions are far too slow. And too complicated. The idea is to view the pictures and get involved, not to sit and watch transitions all night. In a slide show the pictures rule, not the gimmicks.

[reesewomp]

Great tips. So less is more then, thanks for all the help, this has been the best forum I've ever been on, so many these days you get flamed for asking questions.