Video Image Too Small

fincaman · Post by **fincaman** » Thu Jun 21, 2007 10:30 pm

Hello all this is my first post, I have just bought my first video camera a JVC 575 with HDD I have imported the files of my first effort (a play) and have had no trouble editing adding titles and effects. I have decided to keep all my videos on a dedicated hard disc in AVI format so that I can view them or burn them to DVD for friends. My problem is that after being rendered with Xvid they playback smaller than the original size. I have tried changing image size but this has no effect. If I burn them to DVD they do not fill the TV screen. They were shot in 16:9 can anyone help please

DVDDoug · Post by **DVDDoug** » Thu Jun 21, 2007 11:52 pm

My problem is that after being rendered with Xvid...

There's your problem!

(I'm not saying this will always happen with Xvid... I'm just saying that the highly compressed formats are trouble...)

... after being rendered with Xvid they playback smaller than the original size.

Are your AVI files Xvid encoded?

Did you re-render it as a regular video-DVD (MPEG-2)? Is it still too small after being re-rendered as a regular DVD?

What's the resolution of your video? (720x576 is standard for PAL DVD, although the DVD spec alllows a couple more lower-resolution options).

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I don't know enough about your files or what you are doing to help you, but I do have some general comments for the future:

- Your HDD camera probably records to MPEG-2. DVDs are also MPEG-2, so your video should not have to be re-rendered except as required for editing. It's best to archive the files in their original form. If the MPEGs won't fit on your hard drive you can save the MPG files (as "data" files) on DVD-R. It's also a good idea to make an archive/backup copy of any DVDs you author and burn.

- All of the video compression techniques are lossy. Data is thrown-away each time you encode or re-render. You loose quality when you convert to Xvid, and you loose quality again when you convert it back to MPEG-2 for the DVD. Most video editing (other than simple cutting & splicing) requires the video to be de-compressed & re-compressed, which degrades the quality. If you use SmartRender, the video will only be re-coded where required (i.e. during a transition).

None of these formats are really designed to be converted. Ideally, the video should be compressed once after all editing is done. If you are making a DVD, you would compress to MPEG-2. If the video is being compressed for playback on a computer you can compress to Xvid or just about any other format of your choice.

- The more compressed the format, the more likely you are to run into strange problems. AVI/DV at 13 GB per hour rarely causes trouble. MPEG-2 sometimes causes trouble (I had to buy a special-purpose editor for MPEG-2.) Xvid and DivX users report lots of problems here on the forum.