Correct video display on both widescreen AND standard TVs

confused1 · Post by **confused1** » Thu Jul 27, 2006 2:26 am

Hello everyone,

I'm new to this forum and I hope someone can help me...

I captured a video with aspect ratio 16:9 (set on the camera) into Windows Movie Maker 2 and saved the final .avi file with the same ratio. However, when I burn the final DVD using DVDWS2, I find that when I play it on a standard 4:3 TV, although it has black bars above and below the image, it appears cut off on the sides. This isn't a trivial problem for me, as I have text displayed during parts of the video. Does anyone know what settings I should use in order to have the picture displayed correctly on BOTH widescreen AND standards TVs? This is because I need it to be displayed correctly on both, without it cutting off on the sides when displayed on a standard TV.

Your help would be most appreciated.
Cheers,
Samantha.

heinz-oz · Post by **heinz-oz** » Thu Jul 27, 2006 2:52 am

You will lose about 10% around your TV image regardless. It's called "overscan" and is unavoidable. Aim to have your titles in what is called a "title safe" area. I have mine set to 15% and never have a title cut off at the sides. PC monitors display the whole frame but TVs don't.

confused1 · Post by **confused1** » Thu Jul 27, 2006 3:57 am

Thanks Heinz for your informative reply. I was thinking that another way of overcoming this problem would be to set the aspect ratio on the camera to 4:3. Do you (or anyone else in the forum here) know whether this will stretch (and display correctly) on a widescreen TV?

Thanks in advance,
Samantha.

heinz-oz · Post by **heinz-oz** » Thu Jul 27, 2006 4:14 am

I don't have any experience with wide screen TV.

Does your camcorder record true 16:9 aspect ratio or is it instead interpolating to give you the wide screen illusion?

If you record in 4:3 and display in 16:9, depending on the settings of your DVD player, your video will be either stretched horizontally or have black bars on the side. If you are able to get the black bars, your overscan would go into the black bars and your video would display the full frame horizontally. Vertically though, you would still lose some of the full frame detail to the overscan.

If your image is stretched, people would look fatter than they are and you still lose the overscan.

Basically, I would advise to record in the aspect ratio you intend to view at. Not much point shooting in 16:9 if you only have a standard 4:3 TV.

skier-hughes · Post by **skier-hughes** » Thu Jul 27, 2006 9:15 am

If the tv's menu is set correctly it will display the movie in the right way, whether it is 16.9 or 4.3

DVDDoug · Post by **DVDDoug** » Thu Jul 27, 2006 5:34 pm

Samantha,

There is one thing you could do with your video editing software. (As you probably know, Workshop is not a video editor.)

Zoom out, making the image smaller, with a blank-black "border" around it. You should only use this effect only where needed... You probably don't want to shrink the entire program.

I'll leave the details to you. I've never actually done this with video... I've done it to still-images that would be later inserted into my video. (I used photo editing software, not video editing software.)

Doug.