How do I add a border?

[Merick]

After converting and burning some divx video files to a dvd, it plays fine on my computer, but when I play it in a regular dvd player, the tv cuts off a strip all around the screen. Is there an easy way to add a black border to the video so I can see the whole picture on my tv?

[setarip]

The following "canned" example will show you how to add "black bars to the top and bottom of the screen. Use the same procedure described (for these vertical additions) for creating left and right side bars by adjusting the horizontal in the same manner:

(In VirtualDub, set "Video" to "Full Processing Mode" and "Audio" to "Direct Stream Copy")

1) Load you .AVI video into VirtualDub
2) From the "Video" dropdown menu, click on "Filters", then click on the "Add" radio button and doubleclick on the "Resize" filter
3) Set "New width" and "New height" to the SAME resolution as your original .AVI (In this example, I'm assuming it's 720x480)
4) Put a checkmark in the box labelled "Expand frame and letterbox image - and enter a multiple of 16 in "Frame height" (Perhaps 208, or 192 to approximate 16:9 - which, in this example, will increase the height from 480 to 688 or 672)
5) Click on "OK" to return to the "Filters" window

6) Once again, doubleclick on the "Resize" filter
7) Set "New height" to 480 (This will reduce the ENTIRE image, including the black bars to 480 pixels of vertical resolution). Click on "OK" until you get back to the main VirtualDub window
8) Save with a new filename

[Merick]

I'm new to this, is 720x480 the standard resolution for DVD? my video is actually 640x480, will I need to add more to the height to keep the video from being deformed, or will my dvd authoring sofware (Nero 6) keep the aspect ratio?

[setarip]

"is 720x480 the standard resolution for DVD?"

Yes for the NTSC world (North America, etc.) - 720x576 for the PAL world (Great Britain).

I'd suggest you try the following for converting your original .AVI:

One set of procedures (other posters may/probably will suggest alternative methods) would be:

1) Use "TMPGEnc" to convert the .AVI (DivX-compressed or otherwise) to compliant MPEG2-for-DVD format - Use "TMPGEnc's" DVD wizard/template to accomplish this

2) Use "TMPGEnc DVD Author" (a different program than "TMPGEnc") to easily create the required additional DVD files and structure (and chapters and a menu, if you wish)


**If the combined filesize of the DVD "package" written to your hard drive is greater than 4.37Gb, use DVD Shrink (or similar) to compress


If your O/S is either Win2000 or WinXP, TMPGEnc DVD Author can also burn your DVD. Otherwise, use NERO to burn in "DVD-Video" mode
(As an alternative to "TMPGEnc DVD Author", you could use "DVDLab")


Let us know of your success ;>}

[windtrader]

You can also use DVD2DVD (DVD2SVCD to DVD output) with FACAR. This process resizes the picture downward to compenstate for overscan. The default is 5% which is probably what you are missing.

Doom9 has a forum dedicated to this program.

[Merick]

Okay, I used DVD2DVD with FACAR to re-encode one of the files. Following what it said in the readme, I started with "detect borders", used the preview to bring up a still image, and then switched to the normal FACAR.

When I played the mpg to see the results, although FACAR did add a black border to the video, it seems that before adding the border it still cut off a strip all the way around the video. Any ideas how I can fix this?

(I would have asked on Doom9's forum, but I've only just registered there and still have five days before I can post)

[windtrader]

Merick,

The original intent of FACAR is to reduce the size all around to account for overscan in most TVs; so one of the default paramters in the ini file gives you the bars on the left and right. Look in program directory for dvd2dvd and in the avisynth.ini file look for the following and note the change.
[AVISYNTH_FACAR]
0=ResizeTo=^ResizeTo. global ResizeMethod=^ResizeMethod. DebugMode=^DebugMode
1=GammaCorrection=^GammaCorrection. Hue=^Hue. Saturation=^Saturation. Brightness=^Brightness. Contrast=^Contrast
2=DetectedTop=^DetectedTop. DetectedHeight=^DetectedHeight
3=OverscanH=^OverscanH. OverscanV=^OverscanV. BlockOptimization=^BlockOptimization. AsoTV=^AsoTV
4=global Bicubic_b_Value=^b_value. global Bicubic_c_Value=^c_value
5=DestinationWidth=^TargetWidth
6=DestinationHeight=^TargetHeight
7=LoadPlugin(!SimpleResize.dll)
8=# Import(!qmf15b1.avs)
9=# Import(!QMF_functions.avs)
10=# Import(!PreResize.avs)
11=Import(!FACAR.avs)
12=# Import(!PostResize.avs)
^ResizeTo.=7
^ResizeMethod.=1
^DebugMode=0
^GammaCorrection.=1.0
^Hue.=0
^Saturation.=1.0
^Brightness.=0
^Contrast=1.0
^DetectedTop.=106
^DetectedHeight=274
^OverscanH.=0.00
^OvrscanV.=0.00
^BlockOptimization.=0
^AsoTV=1
^b_value.=0
^c_value=0.6
!SimpleResize.dll=C:\Program Files\DVD2SVCD\Avisynth2.5 Plugins\SimpleResize\SimpleResize.dll
!qmf15b1.avs=C:\Program Files\DVD2SVCD\Avisynth2.5 Plugins\FACAR\qmf15b1.avs
!QMF_functions.avs=C:\Program Files\DVD2SVCD\Avisynth2.5 Plugins\FACAR\QMF_functions.avs
!PreResize.avs=C:\Program Files\DVD2SVCD\Avisynth2.5 Plugins\FACAR\PreResize.avs
!FACAR.avs=C:\Program Files\DVD2SVCD\Avisynth2.5 Plugins\FACAR\FACAR.avs
!PostResize.avs=C:\Program Files\DVD2SVCD\Avisynth2.5 Plugins\FACAR\PostResize.avs

[Merick]

Here's what it says:
[AVISYNTH_FACAR]
0=ResizeTo=^ResizeTo. global ResizeMethod=^ResizeMethod. DebugMode=^DebugMode
1=GammaCorrection=^GammaCorrection. Hue=^Hue. Saturation=^Saturation. Brightness=^Brightness. Contrast=^Contrast
2=DetectedTop=^DetectedTop. DetectedHeight=^DetectedHeight
3=OverscanH=^OverscanH. OverscanV=^OverscanV. BlockOptimization=^BlockOptimization. AsoTV=^AsoTV
4=global Bicubic_b_Value=^b_value. global Bicubic_c_Value=^c_value
5=DestinationWidth=^TargetWidth
6=DestinationHeight=^TargetHeight
7=LoadPlugin(!SimpleResize.dll)
8=# Import(!qmf15b1.avs)
9=# Import(!QMF_functions.avs)
10=# Import(!PreResize.avs)
11=Import(!FACAR.avs)
12=# Import(!PostResize.avs)
^ResizeTo.=0
^ResizeMethod.=1
^DebugMode=0
^GammaCorrection.=1.0
^Hue.=0
^Saturation.=1.0
^Brightness.=0
^Contrast=1.0
^DetectedTop.=0
^DetectedHeight=480
^OverscanH.=0.04
^OverscanV.=0.04
^BlockOptimization.=0
^AsoTV=1
^b_value.=0
^c_value=0.6
!SimpleResize.dll=C:\DVD2SVCD\Avisynth2.5 Plugins\SimpleResize\SimpleResize.dll
!qmf15b1.avs=C:\DVD2SVCD\Avisynth2.5 Plugins\FACAR\qmf15b1.avs
!QMF_functions.avs=C:\DVD2SVCD\Avisynth2.5 Plugins\FACAR\QMF_functions.avs
!PreResize.avs=C:\DVD2SVCD\Avisynth2.5 Plugins\FACAR\PreResize.avs
!FACAR.avs=C:\DVD2SVCD\Avisynth2.5 Plugins\FACAR\FACAR.avs
!PostResize.avs=C:\DVD2SVCD\Avisynth2.5 Plugins\FACAR\PostResize.avs


What I want to know is, how can I get it to shrink the image to add a border instead of cropping the image to add a border, which is what it is currently doing.

[Merick]

Just found fitcd, will see if that works better

[setarip]

Have you tried the VirtualDub solution I provided to you?

[Merick]

I did try it, but after using VirtualDub to resize the video I ended up with a loss of picture quality.

Although I'm still tinkering with the settings for the Dvd2svcd plugins, so far with Windtrader's method I've been able to convert a test divx file to mpeg with little or no loss of quality.

[windtrader]

Hey setarip,

I've not used VirtualDub. If it does a resize, what filters is it using? Are these user selectable?

thx

[setarip]

To windtrader

Read my first post to this thread...

[windtrader]

setarip, I did read your post. Maybe I don't know enough about the topic of filters but since I use AVISYNTH and its various filters, my question was more specific as to what type of resize filter is being used? When using AVISYNTH, there are a number of different filters that can do resize, so I was wondering if these can be interchaned, thus the part about user selectabity. In your post it is clear you can select resize, I wanted to know if you can add different resize filters for example.

thx

[Merick]

Weel, I'm still new to this and don't know too much about this stuff, but the resize filter setarip is talking about looks like an internal one. However, Virtualdub does have a plugin folder for adding filter plugins with the "vdf" file extension, if that's what you mean.