Hi, I'm new to these forums so if this thread should be located somewhere else just point that out to me so that I don't post in the wrong places. Basically, I watch a lot of fansubbed anime. All of the subs are hardcoded into every AVI that I have. When I try to watch them on my TV (I have a DivX/XviD DVD Player) the subtitles are cut off from all sides, left, right, and bottom sides. I can see them minimally. I know this can be fixable through the service menu, but that would require a service remote or getting some technician to come in and do it for me. I don't want the service remote because that's about $60 for simply fixing the overscan amount on one maybe two TVs. I don't want to deal with any technician because I just talked to one and he told me that it's very very dangerous and I shouldn't even operate the TV and that I should quickly take it over for a free estimate, in other words, he was expelling salesman bull through the phone lines and into my ear. Anyway, I'm looking for a somewhat quick way to add some black bars around the video so that the black bars get cut off instead. I'm thinking it should be somewhat easy to "resize" the video resolution but instead of stretching the video, the extra space would just be black. Does anyone know of a program that might be able to do this? I have a lot of anime that I would like to have on DVD and be able to see the subtitles until I finally learn Japanese Thanks in advance!
There is no quick way. It requires re-encoding which takes time. You could batch process files using mencoder with -vf expand to add borders, then scale to resize back down. Still take time, but at least it doesn't require user interaction.
Some divx players have a zoom function. I assume yours does not - I guess you would read the manual before posting the question on here? What is your players make and model? My Ellion DVX-520C which I bought in 2003 has a special zoom for divx which is different from the DVD zoom. It lets me increase or decrease the width and/or height in small steps so i can make a video fit the screen.
Thanks for the replies! I know how to re-encode the videos to add black bars, which is why I'm asking here... I know how long that takes, especially for 250+ episodes. As for the zoom, I did look through my dvd player's menu to find some sort of function like that but not my manual. I will look through it, I hope there is some hidden zoom function. It's an LG, I can't remember the model name at the moment, partially because I'm also running into OS problems with my Laptop. I'll post what I find out about this problem later.
OK, the model number is LDA-730. It has a zoom function (when I saw it I was so happy... until) but it can only zoom in, not out. In the Display Mode menu, it has a Letterbox option but this doesn't help because the videos are in perfect 4:3. I'm thinking of two options at this moment. I don't want to re-encode the videos because that would take too much time. Option one, the less favorable one, is to flash the dvd player's chipset with some firmware that maybe allows me to zoom in? I doubt I will find any firmware for something like that. Option two is to take it back to the store and ask for a player that had DivX support and a Zoom Out feature. What do you guys think?
Or buy a new TV. Also be aware that many players will zoom out to 50% minimum, which will mean too much black.
Buying a new TV would be useless, as they all come with some overscan. Also, I'm having a problem with Future Shop as they don't exactly advertise the zoom out feature. it seems like all they care about is zoom in. Does anyone know of a web-site that would maybe tell me about this? I'm going to try Videohelp as I think they have lots of models.
I don't know about any particular web site. I do find a certain search engine very useful. It's at http://www.google.com. I searched for "divx dvd player zoom out". (Without quote marks!) That found me the Nortek NDVX 2502 in the first few results. This costs £36 in the Uk which is about 75 USA dollar$. I didn't know if there is a US equivalent model. So I added "USA" to the query. This found me the Avayon DXP-1000 which has zoom from 1024 x normal (ie zoom in) to 1/8 size (ie zoom out). This seems to be $69.99 from J&R Music and Computer World which seems to reached via Amazon:- http://www.amazon.com/b/103-2030714-7871836?ie=UTF8&me=A3LJ5WMKNRFKQS Here is a link to the manual http://www.avayon.com/pdf/ENG_Manual_Ava1000Rev4_final.pdf I'm not saying this is the machine for you necessarily, but you can see how easy it is to get information if you know how.
Indochine, I know how to use Google, and I also happen to know how to acquire information. This is not a normal problem though, as for some reason manufacturers love to make crappy zoom features with under-par increments and zoom-in only. So far, I have found a site completely dedicated to my problem. http://www.mastersofcinema.org/reviews/03lookingbeyond.htm They mention the Malata PDVD-N996 in that article. The incremental zoom that they mentioned can be easily interpreted differently by manufacturers, which is what pisses me off. As for the Nortek NDVX 2502 I did some research and I could not find it. If it is similar, then I can look at the Avayon DXP-1000 instead. Looking at it, yes it has a zoom out feature, but here is the part where the firmware programmers let me down again. Most likely the DVD player carries a Decoder that could do incremental zoom, but the firmware it comes with does not have this feature. With the Avayon DXP-1000 you would be able to zoom out to 1/2 then 1/4 then 1/8. Oh the frustration of trying to find the right DVD player. I would really love to find a place to buy the Malata PDVD-N996 as it seems to be the only reliable DVD player with incremental zoom that I can see. I can see why this feature is not THAT popular, especially with LCD nowadays, but come on, what about the rest of us? Thanks for trying Indochine, and for clarification, I'm not very stupid when it comes to electronics or searching Google. I work in technical support, so I know the REAL definition of stupid. I should have specified my requirements more clearly.
Ouch, no wonder I can't find the Malata. The 996 model has been discontinued, and I think they stopped making the incremental zoom because it wasn't very popular and cost a lot of money to implement. This seriously makes me wanna cry . Why do some things just have to be so hard? Still looking though, haven't given up home yet. Apparently there are some newer models with this feature that were discontinues in 2004, but that's about as new as I can find. *EDIT* OK did some more searching... it gets worse the farther I get in. There are currently no DVD players in production with this feature. i could buy the DAV 3600 and it would still have the feature, but it doesn't support DivX. I wanna scream right about now. Maybe I should just stick to learning Japanese or buying a new TV. *Sigh*
Silkywipe, I apologize if what I wrote seemed condescending. I read it again, and it does seem like I was teaching my grandmother how to suck eggs. I am afraid I have got used, on here, to seeing many posts where the person is asking for information they could have found in 0.002 seconds using Google. So sorry about that. It does seem odd that you cannot find a model with incremental zoom. One is so used, in the world of technology, to newer models having extra features, it seems strange to hear of features being dropped. I expect you have seen remarks in forums, where others have asked about this, that modded Xboxes can be made to do fine grained zoom. Maybe you can find a cheap used model. My own divx dvd player is the Ellion DVX-520C, which I bought in November 2003. It uses the Sigma EM8500 chipset. I just tried the zoom on my 4:3 TV with a 4:3 divx video clip, zooming out, I could press the horizontal zoom 25 times, and the vertical zoom 16 times before zooming stopped, the final result was a tiny (square) display in the middle of the screen. One of these went for 11 UK pounds on Ebay (after 2 bids) about one month ago. That's about $20 US I think. It has NTSC output, so it is possible a similar model was marketed in the USA, in fact the Liteon LVD-2001 player was sold there and used the same chipset. Reading a couple of reviews suggest it had some kind of incremental zoom.
Yeah I was considering buying a DVD player with a descrypter capable of x-y zoom, and then flashing it with possibly Malata firmware so that I could have that feature. I'm reluctant to do this though as it would void the warranty. Also, I doubt I would be able to find the firmware for the Malata 996, because I'm pretty sure it's the only DVD player with both DivX capabilities and x-y zoom. I think I'll do some more research into the flashing option but in the end I think I will stick to learning Japanese As for your apology, you are welcome. It's just nerve wracking when the intelligent people of a forum start scolding newbies who actually know what their talking about. I think I've done this a few times though so you're not alone
