<sigh> More noob Q's on letterbox

[ulyanov]

Hi there.

I've got "Band of Brothers" episodes I'm trying to burn to VCD, but like every other noob I'm having trouble viewing the whole picture. I've done a search and read up on the last months posts on this sort of thing, but I'm not sure my problem is the same as most.

The Mpegs are mpeg1 352 * 240 NTSC, and when I played them on my TV using the PC and my old x-10 DVD anywhere they came up perfect.

When I burned them using nero (Did *not* reencode them) they played on my JCV THA5 without the letterbox, so I lost the sides.

The thing is that the mpegs seem to have the black bars already encoded into them (there's an HBO logo that fills the screen from top to bottom - it's taller than the "widescreen" section, and afaik Mpegs cannot have different sizes in one stream) , so I don't think playing with them in tmpeg is going to help, but I am willing to be proven wrong.

I'm always asking long winded questions, so here's a summary:

I want Letterbox.
The Mpeg is letterbox 352 * 240 NTSC
The VCD player doesn't play them in letterbox.

harley...

[ulyanov]

OK, I've reencoded using the different settings in tmpeg - 1:1vga, 4:3 NTSC and 16:9 NTSC in the advanced, and every time I get an Mpeg of the same pixel and byte (to within 2k out of 700meg) size as the source.

I've got nfi where to go from here.

[wulf109]

In tmpeg's advanced settings there an item called video arrange method.
Change it custom centered,two size boxes will open. Your encoding at 352x240. Set the custom size to 352x200,then use the preview function in Tmpeg to check the effect. You will have to play wth the height setting until you get the proper aspect ratio.

[ulyanov]

um. That just squashes it, bad. To get the right aspect I had to go to, you guessed it, 352x240.

I *think* what I need to do is add bars to the top & bottom to make it fully 4:3, so from 352x240 make it 352x264

Hows that for a plan?

<goes off to try>

[ulyanov]

<sigh> replying to my own posts....



OK, rather than reencoding to the vcd template I've set it to go to mpeg-1 352x264 in the video tab, and set the advanced to 4:3 NTSC, with an arrange of keep aspect (2)

If I set the source to 1:1vga it squashes, but if I use the above settings it seems 100 %. Have to test now...

[ulyanov]

grrr. vcdeasy won't let me burn at 352 * 264. Damnit!

So now I have an mpeg that's true 4:3, and I know it's gonna look right on my TV, but I can't burn it.

I might try burning with nero, and ignoring the requirements. hmmm...

harley...

[ulyanov]

OK I'm nearly happy.

352*264 worked, inasmuch as I could watch the whole display, except a small bit of overscan, which I can't adjust on the player or tv. Nero didn't like it, but I told it to do it anyway.

Now, what do I need to do to drop chapters into Nero? I had lovely chapters by frame in vcdeasy, but it won't take my fancy oversize video.

vcdeasy has an option to create only an xml file. is that all I need? the xml file has

     <sequence-item src="C:\Band Of Brothers - s01e01.mpg" id="Sequence-0001-01">
      <default-entry id="Chapter-0001-01"/>
      <entry id="Chapter-0001-02">249.616</entry>
      <entry id="Chapter-0001-03">512.879</entry>
      <entry id="Chapter-0001-04">1404.670</entry>
      <entry id="Chapter-0001-05">1699.665</entry>
      <entry id="Chapter-0001-06">2023.288</entry>
      <entry id="Chapter-0001-07">2190.355</entry>
      <entry id="Chapter-0001-08">2563.227</entry>
      <entry id="Chapter-0001-09">2936.901</entry>
      <entry id="Chapter-0001-10">3143.407</entry>
      <entry id="Chapter-0001-11">3727.591</entry>
      <entry id="Chapter-0001-12">4181.144</entry>
    </sequence-item>

the frames should not have changed at all, as I'm still using 29.97 fr...

so I should be able to just drop this in the nero drag and drop area - will it figure the right place to put it, or do I drop it in a specific place?

I'm a bit tired of wasting CD's so any help would be cool.


harley...