Pan Scan Menus in Maestro

[fateman]

Has anyone successfully done this? I've made a motion menu in 16:9 and imported and made it a menu in Maestro and chose Force to Pan Scan in the project properties, but when I play it on the TV, it basically just freezes the whole time. I hear the audio, but there is essentially no video. Is there some step I missed?

Thanks

[Msc_Alex]

That's what manuals are for:

16:9 Pan-Scan
A rarely used option for working with 16:9 material is to encode it with “pan-scan”
vector information. (This must be done during the video encoding process.) 16:9 Pan-
Scan is a compromise approach to viewing 16:9 material on a 4:3 TV — where some
information normally on the sides of the video frame are cut off so that the video content
can fill the entire 4:3 picture frame without any letterboxes.
With 16:9 Pan-Scan, the video content will behave as normal when viewed on a 16:9 TV
and will fill the entire 16:9 picture frame. When viewed on a 4:3 TV, however, the content
will pan and scan so that the “action” area is what fills the entire 4:3 picture frame —
assuming, of course, that the content has been encoded with the pan-scan vector
information. This is a feature rarely, if ever, seen on an encoder.
(Typically, the action area is the center of the 16:9 image. However, there are times when
the action area — such as a character speaking — is off to one side of the video frame. In
this case, by panning and scanning during the encoding process, the action area won’t be
cut off from view.)
If you select the 16:9 Pan-Scan option, then end-users who are using 4:3 TVs will only be
able to view the current DVD Movie in full-screen mode — even if end-users have set
their DVD players to view 16:9 material in 16:9 Letterbox mode.
Note: If you choose the 16:9 Pan-Scan option and the content is not pan-scan
vector encoded, then only the upper-left area of the video image will be seen
during playback. In other words, only choose the 16:9 Pan-Scan option if the
content is pan-scan vector encoded.

[fateman]

Ok, I should have guessed that - thanks.

But, IS there a way to encode a pan and scan mpg?

[mpucoder]

CCE, among others, can create pan/scan mpeg. You might also want to check out ReStream, it can add the needed headers after encoding.

The information Msc_Alex quoted isn't quite right, though (whose manual is that?). In the absence of pan/scan vectors the display will be dead center (vectors are signed offsets from center, default value is 0)

[fateman]

Thanks for the info.

I can't figure out how to make it work with either programs, though. I cant't find such an option in CCE and there is no information about how to do it exactly with Restream.

Anybody have any information on this?

Thanks

[Msc_Alex]

Originally posted by mpucoder
whose manual is that?
The user manual
chapter 6 page 71

I have seen the option in cce 2.7

[mpucoder]

Note, you can not use pan-scan on anything but mpeg-2 720 or 704 pixels wide.

To use ReStream to add the information:
start ReStream
Open the m2v file
On the left side near the bottom is an area for contolling Sequence Display Extension. Change it from "don't change" to "add", you do not need to check "color", it is not needed
Set the destination file name, unless you want to overwrite, and then press "write"

This sets only the information that states the video is encoded for pan-scan, but does not set any vectors (they go into a header called "picture display extension"). That's OK, the picture will be centered.

[fateman]

Thanks.

What about the number (default being 720, on my video anyway)? Should it stay the same.

I tried it already and burned to a miniDVD, but it didn't work - will have to try again on a DVD.

[mpucoder]

You shouldn't need to change anything else in ReStream. The original resolution should show 720x and the sequence_extension_header should show width of 540.