black borders around DVD-Video

[benderman]

After cutting and rearranging my first DV-video it's ready to be converted to MPEG2 and burn it to DVD+R. For best presentation on the screen I need some information about the black borders around the video. How much black border do I need around the video to show it perfectly on the tv-screen? I don't want the tv to hide much of the picture, but also I don't want to see the black border on it. Is there a "works on most tv screens"-setting for PAL-video (720x576)?

On the web I found too many different opinions form "no border" to "20% of the video".

[meranykta]

Hello.
I guess you 're not trying to make your DV film look like most DVD movies (16:9 or 2.3:1) and your purpose is to correct the slight distortion that an avi-DV file 720:576 has.
If you set aspect ratio of the mpeg-clip to be created to 4:3 in your favourite encoder (tick default settings for PALDVD for sure; this way the program will do it for you), you can be sure that you 'll have a perfect presentation on a 4:3 screen (do not worry any more if 720:576 is not equal to 4:3). No need to add black stripes in any way.
Chris