Clipping subtitles at the edges of the screen?

shadowpraxis · Post by **shadowpraxis** » Sat May 20, 2006 11:48 pm

I recently purchased my first DVD burner and am using MovieFactory 5. My first burn went off without a hitch, but there was a small issue.

The video I'm burning has subtitles (not a separate subtitle track or anything - just overlaid text on the screen that somebody added in a previous edit) that rides pretty low/high on the edges of the screen. Viewing them on my monitor was never an issue, but on my first burn (which except for this problem turned out BEAUTIFULLY - I'm very impressed with the quality) they are only half-visable at the top and bottom of the screen, being cut off horizontally through the middle of the text.

My tv is a regular old 32 inch CRT with a 4:3 aspect.

The avi video files are listed as being 640x480 in size.

My settings on the program are on 4:3, but I haven't seen any option to adjust the edges of the picture so I can make sure the whole video is onscreen and not everything but the subtitles.

I apologize in advance if this is a ridiculously basic question. I tried searching the forums and the web before posting because I didn't want to be a bother.

If there's any info I forgot to give, please let me know.

Thanks in advance...

- Praxis

sjj1805 · Post by **sjj1805** » Sun May 21, 2006 12:26 am

The person who placed the text onto your video forgot to take into account the 10% TV safe area.

heinz-oz · Post by **heinz-oz** » Sun May 21, 2006 12:29 am

A simple search on this board should have given you ample returns and saved you the trouble writing this.

The "Problem" as you call it, is the well known TV overscan. Around 10 to 15% around the total frame size is not visible on a standard TV. That's exactly why you have the "Title Safe" area shown on your titler. I gather that the original footage was not meant to be shown on a TV or the editor was unaware of this "feature" of TV broadcasting.

Ooops, Steve has beaten me to it again

shadowpraxis · Post by **shadowpraxis** » Sun May 21, 2006 12:29 am

*sigh*

And there's no way I can get this file without the subs added like this.

Hrmmm...would burning the DVD in 16:9 result in the image being letterboxed with the full image shown onscreen or not?

shadowpraxis · Post by **shadowpraxis** » Sun May 21, 2006 12:35 am

heinz-oz wrote:A simple search on this board should have given you ample returns and saved you the trouble writing this.

The "Problem" as you call it, is the well known TV overscan. Around 10 to 15% around the total frame size is not visible on a standard TV. That's exactly why you have the "Title Safe" area shown on your titler. I gather that the original footage was not meant to be shown on a TV or the editor was unaware of this "feature" of TV broadcasting.

I tried searching the forum - I searched with several different keyword variants but aparently I didn't parse it correctly. As I said before, I didn't want to post a question if I hadn't tried to find it first.

The files in question WERE intended to be shown on tv, as they were episodes of a foreign tv show, but the subs were added by a third party. Seeing as they put them as low on the screen as they did, they probably intended them for computer viewing only or just never took the posibility of burning to dvd into account. However, my monitor is getting old and the contrast and brightness are rather shot and I'm tired of sitting at my computer to watch these shows, so I decided to just burn compilations of them to DVD.

Again, sorry for the ignorant question. No offense was intended.

heinz-oz · Post by **heinz-oz** » Sun May 21, 2006 12:50 am

Hoppla, it's easier than I thought to step on someone’s toes, sorry, that wasn't my intention either

Just thought that this subject had been raised so many times before. No offence intended

shadowpraxis · Post by **shadowpraxis** » Sun May 21, 2006 12:58 am

heinz-oz wrote:Hoppla, it's easier than I thought to step on someone’s toes, sorry, that wasn't my intention either

Just thought that this subject had been raised so many times before. No offence intended

No worries - it's all good. I never threw "tv safe area" into the search however, like a moron.

After using that, I found a couple of threads with the same problem. My bad.

However, would the idea I proposed earlier work? If I shifted the burn to 16:9, would that just letterbox the video and display the whole image (albeit a bit shrunk down)? If that will work, I'll be more than happy to use that as an agreable workaround. I just hesitate to spend another 3 hours conversion/burn time and another blank disc on something that won't work.

- Praxis

sjj1805 · Post by **sjj1805** » Sun May 21, 2006 1:14 am

Not sure of the power of MovieFactory for this next suggestion because its more suited to a Video Editor such as VideoStudio/MediaStudio
But if you could extract a small section of the video - perhaps a 2 minute clip
then try your idea out on that. You would need to burn this onto a RW disc to avoid wasting one.

shadowpraxis · Post by **shadowpraxis** » Sun May 21, 2006 3:05 am

Just an FYI - I tried the 16:9 trick...

Didn't work.

Oh well - back to the drawing board. Thanks for the help though, guys.

- Praxis

heinz-oz · Post by **heinz-oz** » Sun May 21, 2006 4:39 am

I didn't think it would because the 16:9 is a totally different aspect ratio. Never worked with 16:9 yet so didn't want to put you off.

If you had a NLE like MediaStudioPro, you could try a static "moving path", static means the start and end positions are the same, and run the clips in a smaller frame. That might work but DVD MF doesn't have this feature.

shadowpraxis · Post by **shadowpraxis** » Sun May 21, 2006 7:39 am

Yeah I basically need to find some video editing suite that allows me to 'underscan' the video so that it'll pull back the edges and leave me with a bit of black around the perimeter for the overscan to eat up.

Unfortunately, websearching is proving fruitless. I keep coming up with results relating to professional studio equipment and monitors that allow one to underscan. Hard to find info on software that will do what I need it to...

heinz-oz · Post by **heinz-oz** » Sun May 21, 2006 8:46 am

Not sure about VideoStudio because I don't use it but MediaStudioPro is capable of doing that. Download the trial version and give it a go.

sjj1805 · Post by **sjj1805** » Sun May 21, 2006 9:46 am

to achive a black perimiter all around the existing video You need VideoStudio.
Simply place the video onto the overlay track and resize your video the required dimensions.

Download the trial version - that will do the trick. I am sure you will be so impressed you'll ending up buying it!

GeorgeW · Post by **GeorgeW** » Sun May 21, 2006 12:20 pm

In VS9 and VS10 (not sure about earlier versions), you can also hit the Attribute tab, and check the DISTORT CLIP option -- then either resize or move the entire clip up a little (as long as there's nothing to lose on the top of your clip).

Regards,
George