It seems that DivX files spill off the sides of the TV when played on my SKyworth 3650 and also if I convert them to VCD and play on a normal DVD player. Any way to stop this happening?
I meant spill. Basically it's as if the picture is slightly zoomed in. Like for instance - the DivX logo is partially off screen.
yeah, this happens on anything you watch on a normal TV. For another example, try comparing a DVD on your TV vs on in a DVD-ROM. You'll notice that at least half an inch is cut off on the TV. This is due to overscan on TVs. There are only a few solutions... First and most common but tedious is to add borders around the videos while encoding them so that the border is what gets "cut off" the screen. Of course, if you'd be encoding to VCD or DVD anyway, this will take the same amount as time as it was going to anyway, so there's no time wasted here. In addition, though, some DVDs players (from what I've heard) have a zoom out feature that can solve this problem...but most don't. The best solution, imo, (especially if you're playing DivX files without re-encoding them) but also the most risky (if you don't know what you're doing) is to see if you can adjust the overscan on your TV. Newer models (new as in about the last 10 yrs or so...maybe earlier than that) have "secret" service mode menus that only techs usually know about. These menus will allow you to adjust all kinds of things on your set than you can through the regular menus. A good starting place to research this is these sites: http://www.epanorama.net/links/servicemanuals.html#servicemode http://myweb.accessus.net/~090/how2adj.html http://216.239.37.104/translate_c?u=http://mapage.noos.fr/tophe/tvser.html?KeohiHDTV See if you can find the "Service Mode" for your specific model TV and then see if you can find instructions on how to navigate the menu and know what you're doing and what to change. It's not difficult, but be sure to read a lot of that stuff I gave you (namely in the second link...check the "Entering Service Mode" section near the bottom and also the "Overscan" section. You may also want to order a Service manual which should tell you exactly what you need to know, especially if your TV doesn't have a menu like that...in other words, you may have to crack open the TV and look for little dials that will do the same thing... I just ordered a manual for mine tonight since I couldn't find the service mode for my TV. I hope this will help me, since I have the same problem. Mainly because my fansubbed anime has subtitles that get cut off at the bottom of the screen. Look for your manual at a site like http://www.servicemanuals.net There are other sites to check on that first link I gave you. Good luck and let me know what you do to get around this problem as I'm interested in finding different ways around it. I wish more companies would include the zoom out feature on their players...that would save a lot of trouble.
Thanks very much for your excellent help. Whether it will be of any use, time will tell. It is very much appreciated that you have explained this situation.
not a problem. glad to help It's taken me a long time to get those answers for myself, so I feel I owe it to people. I got my service manual in a few days ago and found there to be no service mode for my TV but that there were dials inside on the board which I could turn to fix the problem of overscan. However, I could only find one to adjust the vertical size. Not sure if I can adjust the horizontal, which I find hard to believe, but there's not reference to one in the book. Oh well. At least I can see the subtitles now.
Matt, I'm planning to share my videos with friends so I guess it wont be logical to ask all of them to adjust their TV sets. Is there a guide I can go to for instructions on how to add borders to my videos while encoding? I'm really new to this so I hope you can help.
I don't quite understand what you mean? Are you asking how adjusting the overscan will affect "normal TV" meaning watching other shows? If so, it's the same thing, only you can see what else was there that you couldn't see before. For example, before adjustment, a logo (say the FOX logo) in the lower corner may have appeared to be right at the bottom of the screen. After adjusting the overscan, the logo will actually be an inch or two away from the bottom/side. Sure. If you're using TMPGEnc for the encoding, it's really easy. There should be plenty of guides to help you with this on this site. Just click the "Guides" link at the top of the page and see if you can find one. I'll give a quick summary of how to do it in TMPGEnc. Let the wizard run and do what you need to do to get to step 3/5 of the wizard called "filter setting". Check the "Clip frame" checkbox. In the new window, click on "Arrange setting." In the drop down menu, select "Center (Cusom Size)." This will allow you change the size of the actual image, but will leave a border around it to fill the rest of the screen. When encoding for VCDs, I changed mine to about 320x220. This fit the image about perfect on my TV, but on other TVs, some of the black border usually showed. It all depends on the TV you're on. My TV seemed to have the highest amount of overscan on all of the ones I've tried my videos on, so you'll just have to try a few different sizes and see what's best for you. There are plenty of guides for TMPGEnc and how to do the rest of the encoding with it if you need them. As I said, check the "Guides" section of this site. If you plan to use VCDEasy for VCDs, it can also crop the video and add a border there itself (best, I suppose, if you're files don't need to be reencoded manually before burning them). I've never done it this way, but I know it's there. It should be fairly obvious. It does it by a percentage scale. A guide I read on VCDEasy said to set the "crop" setting to 3%. I'd probably do it at 5% or more since TVs can sometime have up to 10% overscan. I'm sure not much of that made a whole lot of sense to you. Hell, it's 5am here, and I need to get some sleep, so it didn't make sense to me either Get those programs if you need them and take a look at them for yourself. It should make more sense then. Good luck and feel free to ask for more help if needed.
You've answered my question anyway. I wondered if in watching TV you got black borders or anything. Thanks again for the info.
Just wondering..is it possible to ever have something fit on all TV's? I still live in my parents house(im only 15)haha. So im hoping to someday maybe relive some movies etc on a future TV. Is it possible for it to fit on all TV's?
