Black box settings? Aspect ratios and FPS problems...

Hey all

Ive heard mention a couple of times about that 'black box' or the point at which a television might cut off the sides and bottoms of a encoded video...

Now im ONLY encoding AVI's at a resolution of 640*480 and 29.976 fps, as far as i can see this is where i keep going wrong...
Im using either Mainconcept 1.4 or TMPGenc, although i would like instructions in mainconcept...

How do i eliminate the loss of picture on the sides and bottom of my encoded videos? These avi's have subtitles and i lose a few letters or even a word or two from the beginning and end of the subtitles on the screen and its really the only thing holding me back...

I heard mention of putting a black border to compensate for the overscreening by the television but im not sure how to do this either... any help in both of these questions would be awesome... i will be even willing do get help over a PM in my MSN or ICQ...

Thanks again

 

If you go into Tmpgenc"s "Clip Frame" settings (On the Advanced settings Page) you can configure the Screen so there is a Black Boarder arround the Image so that none gets cut off by your TV sets Overscan...
Your Overscan will generally cut off about 10% to 15% of the Image so just add a Boareder arround the Image that is about 10% to 15% of the Total output resolution....

You can also configure the Black Boarder by useing the "Center(Custom Size)" Option in the "Video Arrange Method" setting so for instance if you are encodeing to a Mpeg file at 720+480 you could set the "Video Arrange Method" setting to "Center(Custom Size)" and set the "Custom Size" to say 640+420 which would add a 40 Pixel border to the Left and Right sides and a 30 Pixel Border on the Top and Bottom....Give it a Try and see how it looks....

Cheers