My first DVD is has a fish-eyed effect

[Bill Carson]

My first DVD is has a fish-eyed effect, bowing outward on the sides.

It looked fine rendered into an AVI file in NTSC 4:3. But as a DVD, it only looks normal when played on a cheap portable player that can be manually forced to 4:3. I even burned a 16:9 version, but that looks fish-eyed on another newer DVD player.

It was edited from AVI clips in ¡§frame based¡¨ mode using the defaults (and probably rendered that way) but the Project Settings for the DVD burn show that the MPEG Properties for file conversion were:
MPEG files
24 bits, 720 x 480, 29.97 fps
Frame-based
(DVD-NTSC), 4:3
Video data rate: Variable (Max. 7000 kbps)
Audio data rate: 256 kbps
Dolby Digital Audio, 48 KHz, 2/0(L,R)

Then just below that in the Project Settings screen, the ¡§Field Type¡¨ was set to ¡§Lower Field First(DV)"

I¡¦m a newbie, and don¡¦t know if that¡¦s a problem. Any ideas what I¡¦m doing wrong?

Thank you!
Bill Carson

[DVDDoug]

This is weird! My first thought is overscan. All TVs are adjusted for overscan, so the picture is "bigger" than the screen and you don't see the edges. This could hide the bowing to some extent. Different TVs and different DVD players will have slightly different overscan adjustments, and the bowed edges might be more noticeable on one set-up than another.

However, the computer should display the whole image and the bowing should be clearly visible on the computer. And, all video (and still image files) are made from a rectangular array of pixels (720 x 480 in the case of an NTSC DVD). The pixels themselves are rectangular, so it's easy to "accidentally" stretch or squeeze the picture. For example, both 4x3 and 16x9 DVDs are 720x480... But, "bowing" a digital image is more tricky and it would require some very special intentional processing. So, I don't have any clue how the original AVI file can be OK, and the DVD can be distorted...

[Bill Carson]

This is weird! My first thought is overscan. All TVs are adjusted for overscan, so the picture is "bigger" than the screen and you don't see the edges.

Thank you DVDDoug,

What you've told me's enough to go and verify that the DVD plays fine on a couple of computers. I see this DVD player manual says it includes support for DVD-R but that it "must be recorded using video mode or VM and must be finalized". It seemed to have played other home made DVD-Rs with no noticeable problems. (This time it's very pronounced.)

Looks like my next step is to just buy another format at the drug store tonight, maybe DVD+R, and see if it plays correctly. I'll try playing it at the neighbors' houses if that doesn't work and just chalk it up to my finicky DVD player if it runs well there....

Thanks
Bill