DVD and 720x480 playback don't fit on TV? (overscan problem)

[sabrewulf165]

I have some MPEG-2 files that are 720x480 resolution (widescreen letterboxed) and when I play them back through the MVP, only the center 640x480 pixels are shown, the rest is clipped. Is there no way around this? I really don't want to alter the files themselves if I don't have to.

[sabrewulf165]

Actually all sides of the video are clipped. The video is NTSC. I've made a picture of what it looks like. The red outline is roughly what I'm seeing of the entire video.

[sabrewulf165]

Changing 4:3<==>16:9 in the Hauppauge config fixes the width, but the video is still too tall, so everything appears stretched vertically. What I'd like to know is how I can play back the file so that it appears on the TV exactly as it would appear if played from a DVD player.

[sabrewulf165]

I thought those settings were only for changing the OSD size?

[Pioneer4x4]

Yes, the MVP settings are only for sizing, and positioning the "Static" screens. According to Sub, playback is controlled entirely by the MVP itself. I also have noticeable cropping with the MVP on my TV. It seems to mainly be on the lower right of the screen. Some watermarks are partially cutoff. I plan on playing back a DVD check video on the MVP and the DVD to compare.

[sabrewulf165]

Yes, the MVP settings are only for sizing, and positioning the "Static" screens. According to Sub, playback is controlled entirely by the MVP itself. I also have noticeable cropping with the MVP on my TV. It seems to mainly be on the lower right of the screen. Some watermarks are partially cutoff. I plan on playing back a DVD check video on the MVP and the DVD to compare.

Cool let me know what you find out. It would be really nice if someone knew a solution to this. I've tried unplugging the MVP but that doesn't make any difference. Right now I'm stuck with 3 options

1) re-encode or transcode the mpeg into a smaller size
2) watch it in 16:9 mode with vertical stretching
3) watch it in 4:3 where so much is cropped that it's very close to looking like a "modified to fit your tv" movie, except without the pan & scan

Obviously none of these are ideal solutions, as one is very time-consuming, and the other two result in reduced viewing quality. Hauppage's MediaMVP site claims the hardware decoder can handle up to 720x480, so you would think that it would know how to "zoom out" to compensate for the overscan, but apparently not.

[sabrewulf165]

bump! Has anyone ever been able to solve this problem?

[TofuDawg]

Same problem here. Has anyone figured out how to get a 720 x 480 MPG to play back without cropping?

[sabrewulf165]

I know I've seen other people talking about this around here before, I can't believe no one has an answer, even if it's just "no that's impossible"

[LilY0da]

First dumb question about the cropping: have you tried to adjust the settings on your TV? The MVP shouldn't crop too much of your video. But it does do stretching...

AFAIK, the MVP displays the images a bit like it feels. There's no control that I know of to say how much is cropped on the top, bottom or sides.

For stretching, this is what I understand so far:

720x480 is not a 4:3 ratio per se (just divide 720 by 480 and you'll see, it's a 3:2 file aspect ratio, not 4:3)
When you play a 720x480 on a PC screen without resizing the window, you can have 2 situations.

1) The *content* of the file is a 4:3 video. Yet, it is not displayed in a 4:3 but a 3:2 container (your 720x480 window). The result is that you see an image that is stretched horizontally on your PC. It also means that the video doesn't have a pixel aspect ratio of 1:1
To display that image correctly, you'd have to stretch it to a 4:3 container, like a 4:3 TV screen, or maximizing your window on the PC (provided you have a 4:3 PC screen), or resizing the playback window size to 640x480, for exemple.
That's the way the MPEG2 are when they are captured by a PVR-150 for exemple.

2) If the image looks perfect on the PC when you play it in its 720x480 window. It means that the pixel aspect ratio is 1:1. It also means that the content are NOT 4:3. The content video has the same aspect ratio as the container (3:2) You can't send that type of image directly to the MVP, since the MVP can't handle videos where the content AR isn't 4:3

The MVP assumes that every video content it receives has a aspect ratio of 4:3 This is why you can send a 352x480 (that's really not a file ratio of 4:3, ain't it?), and as long as the content AR is 4:3, the MVP will play it fine, and stretch/shrink the content to the edges of the screen

I faced that problem many times when trying to play my DVD collection. Most of the files have a Pixel AR of 1:1 (they play fine on the PC) but the file AR is always borked (videos are 720x310, for exemple). To display that correctly on the MVP, you have to add borders to the point where the file AR becomes 4:3
For exemple, keeping 720 as the width, you'd need borders to make your file 720x540. Then in theory you could send it to the MVP as is.

However, to keep in line with Hauppauge recommendations, I usually try to limite the file to 640x480 max. That means you need to do the following steps
1) add 115 pixels of border on top and bottom of video to make it 720x540
2) resize to 640x480

Crazy ain't it? I have a script that computes all that for me and spits AVS files for all my AVIs, but it's still far from perfect, as AFAIK, there is no flag in AVI files that say if the Pixel AR in the video is 1:1 or not. So the detection of wether the file is a 4:3 content with a non 1:1 Pixel AR, or a non 4:3 content with a 1:1 Pixel AR is still very unreliable