Pls help...encoded SVCD being truncated

[tpham]

I've tried searching the forum for an answer to my question but cannot seem to find it. So please help me if you can...

I've successfully encoded a chapter using DVD2SVCD and it all works perfectly through PowerDVD. However, when I play it through a standalone DVD player, the picture is truncated / cut off. The picture is being cut off from the left and right side. Since, it is a karaoke chapter the words to the song is being cut off which makes it useless. I've encoded many movies before and some karaoke DVDs but have never come across this problem. Please help...

Thanks in advance,

[winxi]

You should post the logfile to give us more information.

winxi

[manono]

Hi-

It sounds as if you're losing the left and right sides of the picture to your TV's overscan. You should either use FitCD or the FitCD plugin to DVD2SVCD to find the right AddBorders settings so that you can add black borders on the left and right sides. You may have to experiment to find out how many pixels of black to add to the left and right sides in order to bring the whole picture back onto your TV screen.

[tpham]

First of all thanks for your replies...

The thing is I've encoded my DVDs before and have never noticed this problem. I mostly encode movies so I am thinking whether bits from the left and right were being truncated and I haven't notice before. In saying that, the bits that are truncated from this karaoke dvd is so in your face (pardon my expression) that I cannot believe I would have missed it before. Then I thought that it may be that the dvd was in NTSC format so I went to convert from NTSC to PAL. However, I've encoded my NTSC dvd before and not once did I need to convert to PAL (I am not sure what the benefits would be to convert to PAL in the first place). Double however (pardon my gramma), the version of DVD2SVCD I had does not convert NTSC to PAL correctly. I've searched the forum and found out that the latest version of DVD2SVCD 1.1.3 b2 does. I quickly tried out the latest version last night and again it didn't work. It fell over during the converting of the audio in BeSweet. At the moment I am searching the forum again what else I may need to get the latest version of DVD2SVCD to convert NTSC to PAL.....

[manono]

Hi-

You may just not have noticed it before. Many DVDs of movies already have some black on the left and right sides to take the overscan partially into account. In addition, if there are subs, they don't ordinarily go all the way out to the edge, whereas it seems as if the karaoke text does. You can open the vobs in DVD2AVI and have a look. Or you can open the .avs in something like Nandub. I'd guess that the picture fills the screen all the way to the left and right sides, and that the text often does also. And maybe your overscan is greater than normal. My TV eats up about 16 pixels on the left and right sides.

But you said that you see the whole picture when playing the SVCD on your computer monitor using PowerDVD, so I don't know what else it could be.

[tpham]

manono thanks again for taking the time to help me with my problem.

As you have picked up from my previous post, when I view the encoded SVCD through POWERDVD it is perfect. The karaoke wording wraps around with plenty of space remaining from the left and right side.

I think I'll go and encode another karaoke DVD and see what happens - it is all getting too confusing for me.

Please help me also with this question - I hope it is not too dumb a question. Is it necessary to use FitCD and what would be the benefit? I ask this question because up until now I've been delighted with the results DVD2SVCD has produced (using just the basic functions). I've been using AutoCrop which I believe isn't the same a FitCD. AutoCrop allows me save time during encoding by removing the black borders.

I've been reading messages on this forum what seems like forever. There seems to be all kinds of fancy plug-ins etc poping up everywhere but all I need is something that works. I've been very happy with DVD2SVCD and I think I'll stick to the basic programs that I have.

[manono]

Hi-

"The karaoke wording wraps around with plenty of space remaining from the left and right side."

Ohhh. I figured that the text was burned into the SVCD. Are you saying that it's selectable for the SVCD, and plays differently in PowerDVD and the standalone? My player can't select subs, so I don't know the answer then. I know what I'd do about it if it were my problem, though. I'd convert the subs to a different format, like SSA, creating line breaks when necessary to make sure they weren't too wide, and then use the TextSub Plugin for AviSynth to burn them into the video. But that's slightly more advanced stuff.

I do think that adding black bars to the left and right sides would solve your problem. Then the subs couldn't extend past the video (can they?). I use FitCD by itself to get the correct AddBorders. But there's a long thread about RB's FitCD Plugin for DVD2SVCD as a sticky in the Advanced Forum. It's got complete instructions. Shouldn't be hard to set up. Of course it's not necessary to use either FitCD or the Plugin. But as I see it, there are 2 advantages to adding black borders to the left and right sides of the video. One is that you'll no longer lose any (or very little anyway) of the video to the overscan. The other is that you'll have fewer video pixels to encode, which should bring a slight improvement to the video quality.

But back to your original problem. Maybe it's time you posted the log as winxi requested, so he can see if there's anything screwy going on.

[tpham]

manono thanks again for your reply...

I thinks I didn't explain myself too well with regards to the karaoke wording. It is burnt to the SVCD and is not at all encoded as a sub. Everything works perfectly through POWERDVD but is truncated in my standalone player. I'll try to test the encode again tonight and if the same thing happens I'll post the log. I tried this with the latest version of DVD2SVCD last night but it fell over on the CCE video encoding. I think it may have been caused by me unchecking the downsampling whachamecall it check box.

Thank you once again...

[manono]

Hi-

Whew! OK. Maybe you just have a huge overscan. Do you have any idea how much you're losing from the left and right sides when compared with the picture that PowerDVD gives you? If I'm losing 16 pixels from the left and right sides (I think it's actually around 20 pixels), then I'm losing a little over 3% off of each side. Are you losing the same amount off of all SVCDs (should be)? Are you losing the same amount from DVDs (should be, I think)?

You ever gone into your TV's Service Menu and calibrated it? There's lots you can do besides just the overscan. He doesn't have the codes for all TV sets, but if yours is there, then you may be able to improve the situation. Be warned, though. You can really screw things up if you're not careful. It's a good idea to write down the original values of anything you change, so you can put it back the way it was, if necessary:

http://209.145.176.7/~090/awh/how2adj.html#3.4b

[tpham]

Thanks manono once again...you've been of great help

And now for the verdict...I must firtly say I am sorry for wasting your time...please accept my apologies...

To cut the story short..I had changed the settings on my standalone DVD player from 4:3 Letterbox to 4:3 Scan or something like that to get a better picture with regards to the height of the movie. This was like a sort of ZOOM so in effect I was getting more height in the movie but lost pixel to the left and right of the screen. I had never picked up this problem because I rarely watch the movies I've encoded.

Once again I am sorry for wasting your time and thank you for all your help. I however have a different problem.

I purchased a second dvd player because my first a very good Toshiba dvd player did not play svcd - I gave this to my father. Now however we are able to encode as svcd and change the header to just vcd. By doing this I would be able to let my father view the dvd encodes also. I have tried using DACOW's method of "VCD Header Trick" but the result is not that great. The audio and picture are way out of synch but like 10seconds or more. And in one of DACOW's message there is a mention that you do not need this header trich plugin if you get the latest version of DVD2SVCD. I got the latest version and followed the instruction but there wasn't Advanced settings for me to set to MPEG-1 in the bbMPEG settings tab. I am wondering why this is not in the version I have. Refer to thread http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=42206

[tpham]

sorry that thread should be http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=42406

[manono]

Hi again-

At least you got it sorted out. No problem. I probably should have thought of having you go into the DVD player's menu to fool around in there anyway.

Sorry, but I can't help with the bbMPEG problem. You could mux the video and the audio using bbMPEG manually easily enough, though. I'm embarrassed to admit that I haven't yet installed the latest version of DVD2SVCD. Maybe someone else can help. But if you want to do it manually, it's real easy, and Doom9 has guides for muxing with bbMPEG and authoring and chapters with VCDEasy.

But your current problem sounds like a job for winxi or markrb or one of the other mods of this forum. Or you could start searching. I think I've read of this problem before.