Strange effect when burning SVCD to DVD (video sizeing prob!

[Grim Reaper]

I have the Pioneer DV-343 that plays SVCD perfectly. I have several friends that have DVD players that WONT play SVCD.

I followed several different "how to" guides and I get the same effect every time. On my Pioneer the "DVD" from SVCD plays the correct height, but the width is only about 2/3 of the screen. Its like its playing it at 480 wide. I take that same DVD and put it in a DVD that wont play SVCD at all, and it PLAYS PERFECTLY. I have tested it in 4 different non SVCD playing DVD players and 3 of them played it perfectly, while the 4th did what mine does. I have done the following things:

Change header to 352 x 480 and did my menues.
Changed header back (480 x 480) and then burnt. And Also:
Left header at 352 and burnt
Changed heaer to 720 x 480 and did my menus
Changed headers back (480 x 480) and burnt. And also:
Left headers at 720 x 480.

All give me the same results!

The only thing I have not tried is changing the ENTIRE header to 720 x 480 and burning that way.

I get the same results each time. Plays perfect on non SVCD playing DVD players and the weirdness on my SVCD playing DVD Pioneer DV-343!!


HELP!
Any Thoughts?

[Grim Reaper]

Update:

I still get the same effect but I have found one player that would not play svcd that will play svcd on dvd but just in the center of the screen. Has anyone found this strange effect? Or the effect I mentioned in my original post? Its all great that non SVCD playing dvd players can play a svcd on dvd, but my Pioneer DV-343 can play svcd and it wont play svcd on dvd correctly. It plays it using only 2/3s of the screen width. The right 1/3 is blank. The entire picture is squished into that 2/3s of the screen... its height is ok but the width is not. HELP!

What players have you tested your svcd on dvd on? I am using the old how to guide, and the new one!!! its not working! I have tried every setting on my dvd player I can adjust.

Thanks for any advice!!!!!!

[DJRumpy]

Grim, your player probably can't handle the header trick properly, and no amount of 'header play' is going to fix your problem. Your making a non-compliant DVD. You can't expect it to work everywhere. If you do want it to work everywhere, you will have to convert it to a standard DVD resolution. If your SVCD is good quality, the drop in quality should be unnoticable if it's done properly. I can't speak for a regular TV, but it definately looks good on an HDTV after conversion to 720x480.

[joepic]

I have the Pioneer DV-343 that plays SVCD perfectly. I have several friends that have DVD players that WONT play SVCD.

I followed several different "how to" guides and I get the same effect every time. On my Pioneer the "DVD" from SVCD plays the correct height, but the width is only about 2/3 of the screen. Its like its playing it at 480 wide. I take that same DVD and put it in a DVD that wont play SVCD at all, and it PLAYS PERFECTLY.

I have a Pioneer 525 and have the same "2/3 of the screen" width problem with SVCD's that I have converted to DVD's by using the header trick and authoring with Maestro.

So who ever finds the solution first, lets post it here!

[DJRumpy]

The solution is to re-encode to a standard DVD resolution. Your player doesn't support the header trick.

DVD2AVI -> MPEG2DEC -> AVISynth -> CCE -> SpruceUp

Takes about 1 1/2 hours...The only gotcha is if they overlap the video from disk to disk. You can either drop each MPEG as a seperate 'chapter' of sorts, without recombining, or just combine them, and ignore the instant replay/deja vue thing from the overlap. I use the TRIM function in AVIsynth to get rid of the overlap.

Note, that you can simply re-encode these to half D1, using even less space than the header trick if your a tightwad about the cost of a DVD -r/+r. If your SVCD is good quality, there shouldn't be much loss in quality. My re-encodes look fine.

[Faceman101]

You're at it again

Nice explanation, now if only everyone understood it and did a search before asking.

[DJRumpy]

I assume if someone is messing with MPEG headers, then they probably know about all of the topics above. If they don't, I'm sure they'll let me know!

I spend most of my time on here in the wee hours of the morning, before getting back to serious work 'at work'. I tend to avoid the newbie section, as I don't always have enough patience for someone who hasn't done at least a minimal search through the site, or even glanced at the specifications for the various formats. A little homework goes a long way...