[Lava Lamp Freak]

At 960x540 I have a small amount of overscan. I can only see the top of the task bar and its about the same amount cut off the other sides of the screen. I'm trying to understand how much overscan is normal. Do I need to play around with the aspect ratio control in TT to remove overscan or is a small amount of overscan needed/normal?


I'm also trying to adjust TT aspect ratio for 4:3 TV shows. By default it is stretching the video full screen so I clicked on 4:3 in the control panel and then clicked the width >

 

[jvincent]

Overscan tolerance is somewhat of a matter of personal opinion. Generally speaking most CRT based TVs/HDTVs have somewhere between 5 and 10% overscan or even higher. Many people who tweak there TVs get the overscan down to 2 or 3%.


Even if your TV has some amount of overscan it's possible with Powerstrip to get you "pixel display" i.e the 960x540 pixels of your resolution to completely fill your screen.


Assuming you have done that, a 1.78:1 movie should completely fill your screen with no black bars at all. A 1.85:1 movie should have a very skinny black bar, usually at the bottom.


That being said, many DVDs are mastered with knowledge that TVs have overscan and have added dead areas, i.e. some 1.78:1 movies will show up with black bars (sides and/or top and bottom).


With TT you can either set up your default resolutions so that all 1.78:1 movies completely fill the screen at the expense of losing some of the picture on fully frame movies or you can set up a custom resolution for movies that don't completely fill the screen or you can live with the black bars.


Up to you to choose. I personally prefer to live with black bars and see the whole movie.


At 960x540 your resolution is "perfect" for a 16x9 display so in general all of your non-pan and scan movies should have an aspect ratio of 1.78:1 in the AR editor.


For 4x3 movies your vertical number should be 720 ( 1.33 x 480).

 

[Lava Lamp Freak]

Quote:

Originally posted by jvincent For 4x3 movies your vertical number should be 720 ( 1.33 x 480).

Thanks for the info. I understand everything except for the quoted info. If my screen res is 960x540 what do you mean by my vertical number should be 720? What is the AR for a Pan and Scan movie/TV show?

 

[jvincent]

For 4x3 material you should have black bars on the sides. To get them the right size you will need to adjust the aspect ratio in the editor so that it says 1.33. Since your horizontal resolution is 540 that corresponds to a vertical resolution (or width) of 720.


720/540 = 1.33


Right now you have it set at 800 which is giving you an AR of 1.48 so things will probably look a little fat/squished.

 

[Karnis]

Lava:

IMHO the easiest way to make sure your ARs are correct is with the resolution test patterns in AVIA, making sure the circles are round in the appropriate patterns, and a ruler.

Here's a tip: when you define your 16x9 AR, just add 33% to the vertical total and you have your letterbox AR.

 

[Lava Lamp Freak]

Quote:

Originally posted by jvincent Since your horizontal resolution is 540 that corresponds to a vertical resolution (or width) of 720.

I understand now. I was confused when you said vertical should be 720. It is the width that should be 720 and height 540. Height is vertical, width horizontal.

 

[jvincent]

Oops, I just reread my post. Sorry for any confusion.


I often screw up my vertical and horizontal by not completing the equation properly or mixing up resolution and lines. I know what I mean, it just doesn't always come out right.


Maybe I should make a point of writing the following out 100 times a day.


Number of horizontal lines/pixels = vertical resolution = height.

Number of vertical lines/pixels = horizontal resolution = width.

 

[Karnis]

To be a bit more accurate, it should read:


Number of horizontal scan lines=vertical resolution=height

Number of pixels per scan line=horizontal resolution=width


It took me 150 times a day to get it right.

 

[Lava Lamp Freak]

Harry Potter and Transporter don't look right. The video seems a little squished, people's faces look too skinny. Also there are very large bars on the top and bottom of the images. The ratios are 2.35:1 and in TT it shows 1:78.1 and 960x540 and the lock aspect ratio box is unchecked. Do I need to do something different for 2.35:1 movies?

 

[Karnis]

2.35 movies are still defined as "16x9". Time to bust out the ruler, AVIA, and check how the 4 predefined ARs are setup..

 

[Lava Lamp Freak]

Ok, I still haven't been able to solve this. If I adjust my 16:9 setting in TT to 960x500 it looks about right. I have Avia but it seems complicated and I don't know what to do. Can you help me out?

 

[jvincent]

It sounds like you have different amounts of overscan in the vertical and horizontal directions.


In order to test this display the overscan pattern in AVIA and see which lines "numbers" are visible on each side of your TV. Once you get to the overscan pattern you'll know what I mean by line numbers. Make sure you check each edge of the TV because it'snot guaranteed to be symmetrical.


On a somewhat related topic, are you using powerstrip? It is a great tool for fixing overscan problems.

 

[Lava Lamp Freak]

I'm using PowerStrip and Karnis' Nvidia 960x540p timing. I just plugged in Avia and ran the Overscan pattern. Its 4 at the top, 5 at the bottom, and looks almost perfect on the sides, maybe .5 lines. That is with the 16:9 settings set at 960x540 1.78:1.

 

[jvincent]

That explains it. Pause on that screen and change the height so that the overscan is the same in both directions.


500 height is probably about right for 16x9.


You can then repeat the same procedure for the 4x3 settings. You should set the width to be 720 and the height will end up being about 444.

 

[Lava Lamp Freak]

Thanks. 16:9 looks right at 960x500. I don't have a 4:3 disc at the moment to test, though.. I'll have an X-Files disc from Netflix tomorrow and can test it. I think that 720x500 will be correct instead of 720x444 which squeezes the video to a 16:9 res with black bars on top and bottom.


I really do appreciate the help. This has been driving me nuts. I haven't had time to play around with it and had friends over to watch a movie over the weekend. I stopped the movie a few times to play around with the aspect. They said it already looked fine and seemed to think I was crazy. I thought they were crazy not being able to notice that the people looked squeezed. lol

 

[jvincent]

Given my previous messed uppedness with heights and widths you're probably right.


Best bet, put some tape on the outside of your screen at the correct width for 4x3 and adjust height and width as appropriate.