TV Safe Area

[Dreamhacker]

How can I avoid that the TV Safe Area cuts of parts of the movie/menu??!?

EDIT: How large is the TV Safe Area?

[Ebobtron]

My editor marks the safe area at 576x384 pixals which is about fifty pixals off the top and bottom and about 75 or so pixals off the sides of NTSC 720 x 480 it works out to about 20% of the screen is off limits about 10% each side.

[E-Male]

do you mean the safe title zone or the safe action zone?

[Ebobtron]

I mean the area safe from over-scan and edge convergence distortion. Television.

[E-Male]

have you googeled for it already
also try the terms i posted
you should find something if no-one here can help

[mpucoder]

That area varies, so television engineers use two safe area designations. Inside an area with 5% of the edge removed is called the "action safe" area. Some sets will show all of it, but if some is cut off it's not as important as seeing all the letters in a title. Which is why the area with 10% of the edge removed is called the "title safe" area.

[E-Male]

ah, thx for the numbers

[mpucoder]

That is 5% and 10% on both sides, top, and bottom - as ebobtron noted.

[Dreamhacker]

So I should remove 10% on each side to be sure that everything is shown?
The file I burn is 640x480. The NTSC DVD size is 720x480. I then have to cut something of anyway?

EDIT: How is this done on the "real" DVD's? There is never such problems with those

[The Geek]

EDIT: How is this done on the "real" DVD's? There is never such problems with those

They simply ignore the safe area. On the PC you see the whole image, on the TV the borders will be cropped.
Because of the widescreen format of movies only the sides will actually be cropped, but if you look at a DVD with 4:3 content (like extras, or TV series), you will see that a little bit gets cropped away.
And that is the same with everything you see on the TV.

I don't know why you are so worried about it. The safe area ain't big anyway, and non-CRT-TVs don't even have one (they show everything).
So, I'd just ignore that.

The Geek

[E-Male]

on filming they just take care that not much is happening in that area

[mpucoder]

A lot of cameras have the areas marked on the viewfinder.

[E-Male]

yep, but movie from the time before TV was invented didn't have that (of cours)
so silent film often are window-boxed on DVD, so you don't loose any information in the overscan

[Ebobtron]

Originally posted by Dreamhacker
So I should remove 10% on each side to be sure that everything is shown?I don't think you should remove anything, you need to add or expand.
Originally posted by Dreamhacker
The file I burn is 640x480. The NTSC DVD size is 720x480. I then have to cut something of anyway?No. You would or your editor would resize the clip to 720x480. If you need to see all of your 640x480 clip then you would need to reduce the size evenly around all four side then add borders then resize to 720x480.
--------------------------
But I can't really tell you what you need to do without alot more info. Such as.
Is your clip interlaced?
Is it DV from a camcorder?
What programs are you using?
What encoder for Mpeg2 or Mpeg1?

Kind of a what are you doing type thing. You are sure to get help.
Originally posted by Dreamhacker
EDIT: How is this done on the "real" DVD's? There is never such problems with those.The exact same way only you and I and the rest here are hoping to spend a lot less money.

[mpucoder]

But if you do anything to remove picture from the overscan area your DVD will look strange on any modern display (lcd, plasma, HDTV, computer screens). It's better to do what everyone else does, use the full screen size.

[Dreamhacker]

Hopes this is all the info you need:
- It's a XviD compressed TV episode, cartoon (too lazy to record myself :p)
- Yes, it's interlaced I think, as when I play it on my TV it kinda splits up in lines
- The file is 640x480, NTSC, and it's subbed, so I really can't cut that much (at least nothing on the sides)
- I use TMPGEnc and TMPGEnc DVD Author

Settings for TMPGEnc

Video

Streamtype: MPEG-2 Video
Aspect ratio: 4:3 Display
Frame rate: 23.976 fps (internally 29.97 fps)
Rate control mode: Constant quality (Q: 100, Max bitrate: 3000, Min bitrate: 0, P Picture Spoilage: 0, B Picture Spoilage: 20)
VBV buffer size: 0 (Automatic)
Profile & Level: Main Profile & Main Level (MP@ML)
Video format: NTSC
Encode mode: 3:2 pulldown when playback
YUV Format: 4:2:0
DC component precision: 8 bits
Motion search precision: Normal

Advanced

Video source type: Non-interlace (progressive)
Field order: Bottom field first (field B)
Source aspect ratio: 1:1 (VGA)
Video arrange method: Center (custom size) XXX x XXX (don't know what to set it to)


But if you do anything to remove picture from the overscan area your DVD will look strange on any modern display (lcd, plasma, HDTV, computer screens). It's better to do what everyone else does, use the full screen size.

What does the "real" DVD makers do to make it seem right on both modern displays and CRT TV's? :S

[The Geek]

What does the "real" DVD makers do to make it seem right on both modern displays and CRT TV's? :S

I told you that already. They ignore it. So, a little bit is just not visible on a CRT TV.

The Geek

[Ebobtron]

- The file is 640x480, NTSC, and it's subbed, so I really can't cut that much (at least nothing on the sides)You cut nothing, (no cropping) you resize. If the subtitles fill across the screen edge to edge then someone has already hacked the video up.- Yes, it's interlaced I think, as when I play it on my TV it kinda splits up in linesI'd be interested in how you play this on your TV. Can you read your subtitles then.

[Dreamhacker]

Originally posted by Ebobtron
You cut nothing, (no cropping) you resize. If the subtitles fill across the screen edge to edge then someone has already hacked the video up.I'd be interested in how you play this on your TV. Can you read your subtitles then.

I can read the subtitles, it don't split up that much...But when something move it seems like not all the lines go right, as like some don't change fast enugh :\

About the resize, wouldn't I lose the 4:3 Aspect ratio then?

[E-Male]

not if you resize to the right target resolution

[Ebobtron]

@Dreamhacker
-----
Your making my head hurt. A mpeg or any digitized image has an overall size expressed in pixels. For DVD NTSC Mpeg2 those sizes are 720x480 704x480 352x480 the image is 720 pixels wide horizantal (side to side) and 480 pixels high or tall (up and down) I am excluding the Mpeg 1 DVD resolutions for this conversation.

Within the Mpeg file structure is a way of telling the decoder in the DVD player what size the video should be shown. For now there are two 4:3 and 16:9.

Two common image sizes that have DAR(display aspect ratio) and a real aspect ratio of 4:3 are 800x600 and 640x480. To display these images on a DVD they must be resized to one of the sizes listed above. With the encoder set to mark the mpeg files as 4:3

The aspect ratio has nothing to do with interlaced or progressive frames except don’t try to resize a truly interlaced frame without a couple more months of reading this forum and the guides as well.

Good luck, the subject is easy but the learning curve is high.

[elpedro]

so wait... for the encoder, do you have to do that before you use the video file in an authoring program or are there authoring programs out there that take care of that? Where can I get an encoding program like what you are talking about, cause I have been trying to burn dvds of anime with subtitles and I used sonic and bunch of other authoring programs and everytime I would be missing bits of the sides so I wouldn't be able to read the subtitle.
How do you go about adding a border to the video file so that the video appears in the safe zone.

Please and Thank you

[Richard Iredale]

I discovered a nasty secret yesterday.

We had just bought a 61" DLP HDTV monitor (Mitsubishi) and I was experimenting with all the different screen modes. Since the screen is 16x9, if you show a 4:3 NTSC image then that image has the correct geometry only if you choose the display version called "Narrow" from the display options. Other versions are "Stretch" (where the image is stretched horizontally), "Expand" (where the image is stretched both horizontally and vertically), and so forth.

I had assumed that I would be able to see the entire 4:3 image, especially the left and right sides, since there was no screen bezel covering that part of the screen. To my surprise, I found instead that the circuitry cuts off the usual portions of the 4:3 image before displaying the remainder. From my tests it looked like about 4% was being removed, or about the "standard" amount.

This automatic overscan clipping might be adjustable; I'll have to get a service manual to find out. I have no idea whether other big-screen technologies do a similar 4:3 clipping. One person on another board with a new plasma display said his clipped also.

So the only guaranteed way to see the full image is via a PC DVD player such as WinDVD or PowerDVD.

[Dreamhacker]

Won't see it on PC. Giving up, and rather wait for the DVD's, as this is just too difficult :p.
I have got myself a DivX Player for my TV. Tested some files on my 16:9 TV...Even in XviD they are being clipped, but I noticed that it acctually clipped more when I had the player set to 16:9 mode than Normal/LB mode. It seems the player has some effect on how large the safe area is, so maybe I could get it to remove it completly :D