DVD picture doesn't fill the screen

[felix]

when I played a DVD I hired I found that the picture would not fill the
screen. (see photo) I tried another DVD player and got the same result.
also the same on the PC. anyone know what is going on here?

http://ausnet.info/pics/tv.jpg

--
"As long as there is this book [Koran] there will be no peace in the world"
-William Gladstone, four times PM of Great Britain
http://www.siotw.org/

 

[Jasen Betts]

On 2016-01-10, felix <me@nothere.biz> wrote:

when I played a DVD I hired I found that the picture would not fill the
screen. (see photo) I tried another DVD player and got the same result.
also the same on the PC. anyone know what is going on here?

http://ausnet.info/pics/tv.jpg

it's 4:3 video with 9:4 letterbox mode.

--
\_(ツ)_

 

[Trevor]

On 10/01/2016 8:36 PM, Jasen Betts wrote:

On 2016-01-10, felix <me@nothere.biz> wrote:

when I played a DVD I hired I found that the picture would not fill the
screen. (see photo) I tried another DVD player and got the same result.
also the same on the PC. anyone know what is going on here?

http://ausnet.info/pics/tv.jpg

it's 4:3 video with 9:4 letterbox mode.

Commonly known as "postage stamp". ie. a combination of letter box and
pillar box modes. Pitiful that many companies have simply released their
old VHS masters to DVD, and to hell with the customer. My old DVD player
had a zoom function to increase the size (at the expense of sharpness
though of course). My BluRay doesn't however.

Trevor.

 

[felix]

On 11-January-2016 3:11 PM, Trevor wrote:

On 10/01/2016 8:36 PM, Jasen Betts wrote:
On 2016-01-10, felix <me@nothere.biz> wrote:

when I played a DVD I hired I found that the picture would not fill the
screen. (see photo) I tried another DVD player and got the same result.
also the same on the PC. anyone know what is going on here?

http://ausnet.info/pics/tv.jpg

it's 4:3 video with 9:4 letterbox mode.

Commonly known as "postage stamp". ie. a combination of letter box and
pillar box modes. Pitiful that many companies have simply released
their old VHS masters to DVD, and to hell with the customer.

it's and old movie so that makes sense

My old DVD player had a zoom function to increase the size (at the
expense of sharpness though of course). My BluRay doesn't however.

Trevor.

thanks Trevor and Jasen for the replies. I was able to get it to fill
the screen in correct aspect by a combination of settings on the DVD
player and the TV

--
"As long as there is this book [Koran] there will be no peace in the world"
-William Gladstone, four times PM of Great Britain
http://www.siotw.org/

 

[Trevor]

On 11/01/2016 3:38 PM, felix wrote:

On 11-January-2016 3:11 PM, Trevor wrote:
On 10/01/2016 8:36 PM, Jasen Betts wrote:
On 2016-01-10, felix <me@nothere.biz> wrote:

when I played a DVD I hired I found that the picture would not fill the
screen. (see photo) I tried another DVD player and got the same result.
also the same on the PC. anyone know what is going on here?

http://ausnet.info/pics/tv.jpg

it's 4:3 video with 9:4 letterbox mode.

Commonly known as "postage stamp". ie. a combination of letter box and
pillar box modes. Pitiful that many companies have simply released
their old VHS masters to DVD, and to hell with the customer.

it's and old movie so that makes sense

Not IMO. The movie simply has to be redone for DVD rather than taking
the cheap way out of converting the VHS master. Obviously the film
itself was available for the VHS copy, likely that it is still available
if they wanted to do it properly. Now I do see some $2 DVD's where
obviously you don't expect quality, but unfortunately I also have $30
ones that are simply VHS copies. Pisses me off. :-(

My old DVD player had a zoom function to increase the size (at the
expense of sharpness though of course). My BluRay doesn't however.

thanks Trevor and Jasen for the replies. I was able to get it to fill
the screen in correct aspect by a combination of settings on the DVD
player and the TV

Glad you managed then.

Trevor.

 

[felix]

On 11-January-2016 6:39 PM, Trevor wrote:

On 11/01/2016 3:38 PM, felix wrote:
On 11-January-2016 3:11 PM, Trevor wrote:
On 10/01/2016 8:36 PM, Jasen Betts wrote:
On 2016-01-10, felix <me@nothere.biz> wrote:

when I played a DVD I hired I found that the picture would not
fill the
screen. (see photo) I tried another DVD player and got the same
result.
also the same on the PC. anyone know what is going on here?

http://ausnet.info/pics/tv.jpg

it's 4:3 video with 9:4 letterbox mode.

Commonly known as "postage stamp". ie. a combination of letter box and
pillar box modes. Pitiful that many companies have simply released
their old VHS masters to DVD, and to hell with the customer.

it's and old movie so that makes sense

Not IMO. The movie simply has to be redone for DVD rather than taking
the cheap way out of converting the VHS master.

I was suggesting if it wasn't an old movie it wouldn't have been made
for VHS only DVD

Obviously the film itself was available for the VHS copy, likely that
it is still available if they wanted to do it properly. Now I do see
some $2 DVD's where obviously you don't expect quality, but
unfortunately I also have $30 ones that are simply VHS copies. Pisses
me off. :-(



My old DVD player had a zoom function to increase the size (at the
expense of sharpness though of course). My BluRay doesn't however.

thanks Trevor and Jasen for the replies. I was able to get it to fill
the screen in correct aspect by a combination of settings on the DVD
player and the TV

Glad you managed then.

I learned something.

burnt a DVD yesterday and it freezes halfway thru when playing in the
DVD player. so now I need to figure out.. is it the disc causing the
problem, the burner, or the player? (sigh) 'life wasn't meant to be
easy' [ Asus DVD burner, LG media, Panasonic player ]

Trevor.

--
"As long as there is this book [Koran] there will be no peace in the world"
-William Gladstone, four times PM of Great Britain
http://www.siotw.org/

 

[Trevor]

On 11/01/2016 6:46 PM, felix wrote:

On 11-January-2016 6:39 PM, Trevor wrote:

when I played a DVD I hired I found that the picture would not
fill the
screen. (see photo) I tried another DVD player and got the same
result.
also the same on the PC. anyone know what is going on here?

http://ausnet.info/pics/tv.jpg

it's 4:3 video with 9:4 letterbox mode.

Commonly known as "postage stamp". ie. a combination of letter box and
pillar box modes. Pitiful that many companies have simply released
their old VHS masters to DVD, and to hell with the customer.

it's and old movie so that makes sense

Not IMO. The movie simply has to be redone for DVD rather than taking
the cheap way out of converting the VHS master.

I was suggesting if it wasn't an old movie it wouldn't have been made
for VHS only DVD

Well there is old, and there is OLD. But as I said any full price DVD
that is simply a VHS copy is a rip off IMO, and unfortunately I have a
few :-(

Obviously the film itself was available for the VHS copy, likely that
it is still available if they wanted to do it properly. Now I do see
some $2 DVD's where obviously you don't expect quality, but
unfortunately I also have $30 ones that are simply VHS copies. Pisses
me off. :-(

My old DVD player had a zoom function to increase the size (at the
expense of sharpness though of course). My BluRay doesn't however.

thanks Trevor and Jasen for the replies. I was able to get it to fill
the screen in correct aspect by a combination of settings on the DVD
player and the TV

Glad you managed then.

I learned something.

burnt a DVD yesterday and it freezes halfway thru when playing in the
DVD player. so now I need to figure out.. is it the disc causing the
problem, the burner, or the player? (sigh) 'life wasn't meant to be
easy' [ Asus DVD burner, LG media, Panasonic player ]

Panasonic player. Try using DVD+R instead of DVD-R, sometimes helps. I
know their set top DVD writers are fairly fussy about media type, not
sure about their players. Try checking the disk for errors in your
computer as well. Never used LG media myself, but if it's like the rest
of their stuff I'd suggest trying a different brand anyway.

Trevor.

 

[harold]

On 10/01/2016 7:17 PM, felix wrote:

when I played a DVD I hired I found that the picture would not fill the
screen. (see photo) I tried another DVD player and got the same result.
also the same on the PC. anyone know what is going on here?

http://ausnet.info/pics/tv.jpg

I have a lot of experience with DVDs, I can speculate, but you probably
already know or something by now.
16:9 TV, with DVD player set for 4:3 screen, might cause this for
example. I had a brother who bought his 50 inch new TV and couldn't
understand why movies didn't look right, until I told him to set the DVD
player for 16:9. He was using a zoom or something to compensate until I
told him.

 

On Monday, January 11, 2016 at 11:12:13 PM UTC+8, harold wrote:

On 10/01/2016 7:17 PM, felix wrote:

when I played a DVD I hired I found that the picture would not fill the
screen. (see photo) I tried another DVD player and got the same result.
also the same on the PC. anyone know what is going on here?

http://ausnet.info/pics/tv.jpg

I have a lot of experience with DVDs, I can speculate, but you probably
already know or something by now.
16:9 TV, with DVD player set for 4:3 screen, might cause this for
example. I had a brother who bought his 50 inch new TV and couldn't
understand why movies didn't look right, until I told him to set the DVD
player for 16:9. He was using a zoom or something to compensate until I
told him.

What speed did you use to burn the DVD?

I have encountered this sort of problem when attempting high speed burns with some media. I now use a maximum of 4X and seldom have any issues.

 

[Computer Nerd Kev]

In aus.electronics felix <me@nothere.invalid> wrote:

I burnt the same movie on a TDK disc, and it played fine. I prefer to
use LG tho since I get a better picture from them. TDK discs have better
colour saturation, but are less clear than LG (not as sharp). no problem
to turn the colour up a bit on the tv tho when playing an LG disc. I
don't know that many ppl realize that different brands of discs produce
different results.

That's completely nuts. DVDs use digital MPEG encoded video. Saying the
picture quality is different depending on the DVD-R brand is like saying
the same video file looks different when played from a USB memory stick
compared to from a PC's Hard Disk.

--
__ __
#_ < |\| |< _#

 

[felix]

On 11-January-2016 8:05 PM, Trevor wrote:

On 11/01/2016 6:46 PM, felix wrote:

burnt a DVD yesterday and it freezes halfway thru when playing in the
DVD player. so now I need to figure out.. is it the disc causing the
problem, the burner, or the player? (sigh) 'life wasn't meant to be
easy' [ Asus DVD burner, LG media, Panasonic player ]

Panasonic player. Try using DVD+R instead of DVD-R, sometimes helps.

most shops seem to sell on the minus kind. I don't know why

I know their set top DVD writers are fairly fussy about media type,
not sure about their players.

I tried it in a Samsung DVD player, and it wouldn't play at all!

> Try checking the disk for errors in your computer as well.

what's the best way to do that?

Never used LG media myself, but if it's like the rest of their stuff
I'd suggest trying a different brand anyway.

I burnt the same movie on a TDK disc, and it played fine. I prefer to
use LG tho since I get a better picture from them. TDK discs have better
colour saturation, but are less clear than LG (not as sharp). no problem
to turn the colour up a bit on the tv tho when playing an LG disc. I
don't know that many ppl realize that different brands of discs produce
different results. anyway, I then burnt another LG of the same movie,
and it played just fine also! in all cases I have used the same burner
and source files. what do you think the problem could have been? just a
faulty disc? or somehow a 'bad burn'? I would have thought that quality
control these days would be so good that it's not possible (or likely)
for some discs in a batch to be bad, and that burners don't produce
'faulty' burns either these days. Rod may have some thoughts about all
this too.

Trevor.

--
"As long as there is this book [Koran] there will be no peace in the world"
-William Gladstone, four times PM of Great Britain
http://www.siotw.org/

 

[Trevor]

On 14/01/2016 11:15 AM, felix wrote:

On 11-January-2016 8:05 PM, Trevor wrote:
On 11/01/2016 6:46 PM, felix wrote:

burnt a DVD yesterday and it freezes halfway thru when playing in the
DVD player. so now I need to figure out.. is it the disc causing the
problem, the burner, or the player? (sigh) 'life wasn't meant to be
easy' [ Asus DVD burner, LG media, Panasonic player ]

Panasonic player. Try using DVD+R instead of DVD-R, sometimes helps.

most shops seem to sell on the minus kind. I don't know why

I know their set top DVD writers are fairly fussy about media type,
not sure about their players.

I tried it in a Samsung DVD player, and it wouldn't play at all!

Obviously a faulty disk/burn then.

Try checking the disk for errors in your computer as well.

what's the best way to do that?

I use Nero, but there are other programs to check disk bit error rate.

Never used LG media myself, but if it's like the rest of their stuff
I'd suggest trying a different brand anyway.

I burnt the same movie on a TDK disc, and it played fine. I prefer to
use LG tho since I get a better picture from them. TDK discs have better
colour saturation, but are less clear than LG (not as sharp). no problem
to turn the colour up a bit on the tv tho when playing an LG disc. I
don't know that many ppl realize that different brands of discs produce
different results.

You do realise you are writing digital DATA right? IF the data read is
the same as what was written, there will be NO difference whatsoever
between brands. What DOES happen is that some brands will produce less
errors than others in particular writer/reader combinations. The effect
of those errors depends on the player, but *rarely* (if ever) what you
describe. More usual just freezing/jerkiness, or pixelation.

anyway, I then burnt another LG of the same movie,
and it played just fine also! in all cases I have used the same burner
and source files. what do you think the problem could have been? just a
faulty disc? or somehow a 'bad burn'? I would have thought that quality
control these days would be so good that it's not possible (or likely)
for some discs in a batch to be bad, and that burners don't produce
'faulty' burns either these days.

You thought wrong then! And what many people don't realise is that a
marginal disk may play OK now, but not in a year or two. :-(

Best tip, always burn disks at a lower speed than what they are rated
at. I find 16x disks give far better burns in my writer when burnt at
8x. YMMV though. But if you don't know the actual written bit error rate
on the disk, you have NO idea.

Trevor.

 

[Rod Speed]

"felix" <me@nothere.invalid> wrote in message
news:dfo7luFbnj0U1@mid.individual.net...

On 11-January-2016 8:05 PM, Trevor wrote:
On 11/01/2016 6:46 PM, felix wrote:

burnt a DVD yesterday and it freezes halfway thru when playing in the
DVD player. so now I need to figure out.. is it the disc causing the
problem, the burner, or the player? (sigh) 'life wasn't meant to be
easy' [ Asus DVD burner, LG media, Panasonic player ]

Panasonic player. Try using DVD+R instead of DVD-R, sometimes helps.

most shops seem to sell on the minus kind. I don't know why

I know their set top DVD writers are fairly fussy about media type, not
sure about their players.

I tried it in a Samsung DVD player, and it wouldn't play at all!

Try checking the disk for errors in your computer as well.

what's the best way to do that?

One of the bad block scanners, of the DVD.

Never used LG media myself, but if it's like the rest of their stuff I'd
suggest trying a different brand anyway.

I burnt the same movie on a TDK disc, and it played fine. I prefer to use
LG tho since I get a better picture from them. TDK discs have better
colour saturation, but are less clear than LG (not as sharp). no problem
to turn the colour up a bit on the tv tho when playing an LG disc. I don't
know that many ppl realize that different brands of discs produce
different results.

You're completely off with the fucking fairys
on this, it’s a DIGITAL system, stupid.

anyway, I then burnt another LG of the same movie, and it played just fine
also! in all cases I have used the same burner and source files. what do
you think the problem could have been? just a faulty disc?

Very likely. Perfectly possible to have a blank which just doesn’t
have the photo sensitive material done properly over the entire
blank so you get a patch which can't be written to properly.

That should show up with a bad block scan of the two LG
blanks, the one the plays properly and the one that doesn’t.

> or somehow a 'bad burn'?

Yes, that's possible too. Do you smoke, tobacco or wacky weed ?
You can get a lot of shit on the lens of any optical device if you
smoke. Looks fine to the naked eye but works fine after you clean
the lens with IPA etc.

I would have thought that quality control these days would be so good that
it's not possible (or likely) for some discs in a batch to be bad,

There always have been with the cheaper DVD blanks.

> and that burners don't produce 'faulty' burns either these days.

They can do if they don’t like the
blanks or are owned by a smoker.

> Rod may have some thoughts about all this too.

 

[Robert]

DVDs are old tech. It's time to move on from them. Use a smart
wifi-enabled TV and you can stream movies from your computer or other
devices.

 

[Trevor]

On 14/01/2016 5:29 PM, Robert wrote:

DVDs are old tech. It's time to move on from them. Use a smart
wifi-enabled TV and you can stream movies from your computer or other
devices.

Or just plug a USB drive into most recent TV's. I haven't burnt a DVD
(or CD) for myself for years. Handy if you want to give to someone else
however.

Trevor.

 

[Robert]

"Trevor" <trevor@home.net> wrote in message
news:n77ksp$1odi$1@gioia.aioe.org...

On 14/01/2016 5:29 PM, Robert wrote:
DVDs are old tech. It's time to move on from them. Use a smart
wifi-enabled TV and you can stream movies from your computer or other
devices.

Or just plug a USB drive into most recent TV's. I haven't burnt a DVD (or
CD) for myself for years. Handy if you want to give to someone else
however.

Why not just give them a USB stick instead of a DVD?

 

[Rod Speed]

Trevor <trevor@home.net> wrote

Robert wrote

DVDs are old tech. It's time to move on from them. Use a smart
wifi-enabled TV and you can stream movies from your computer or other
devices.

Or just plug a USB drive into most recent TV's. I haven't burnt a DVD (or
CD) for myself for years. Handy if you want to give to someone else
however.

I don’t even do it for them anymore, they bring their USB sticks
and I put it on those.

They mostly play them using their PS3s which isnt ideal
because they don’t play MKVs and Cimera protected stuff.

They now have a govt provided laptop that they don’t
use so the last time they had a problem with a Cimera
protected movie I told him to bring the laptop and I'd
put VLC on it and fix both problems. He didn’t, so it
must have worked fine on the PS3 this time.

 

[F Murtz]

Robert wrote:

"Trevor" <trevor@home.net> wrote in message
news:n77ksp$1odi$1@gioia.aioe.org...
On 14/01/2016 5:29 PM, Robert wrote:
DVDs are old tech. It's time to move on from them. Use a smart
wifi-enabled TV and you can stream movies from your computer or other
devices.

Or just plug a USB drive into most recent TV's. I haven't burnt a DVD
(or CD) for myself for years. Handy if you want to give to someone
else however.


Why not just give them a USB stick instead of a DVD?
Much more expensive still.

 

[felix]

On 14-January-2016 5:28 PM, Trevor wrote:

On 14/01/2016 11:15 AM, felix wrote:
On 11-January-2016 8:05 PM, Trevor wrote:
On 11/01/2016 6:46 PM, felix wrote:

burnt a DVD yesterday and it freezes halfway thru when playing in the
DVD player. so now I need to figure out.. is it the disc causing the
problem, the burner, or the player? (sigh) 'life wasn't meant to be
easy' [ Asus DVD burner, LG media, Panasonic player ]

Panasonic player. Try using DVD+R instead of DVD-R, sometimes helps.

most shops seem to sell on the minus kind. I don't know why

I know their set top DVD writers are fairly fussy about media type,
not sure about their players.

I tried it in a Samsung DVD player, and it wouldn't play at all!

Obviously a faulty disk/burn then.


Try checking the disk for errors in your computer as well.

what's the best way to do that?

I use Nero, but there are other programs to check disk bit error rate.


Never used LG media myself, but if it's like the rest of their stuff
I'd suggest trying a different brand anyway.

I burnt the same movie on a TDK disc, and it played fine. I prefer to
use LG tho since I get a better picture from them. TDK discs have better
colour saturation, but are less clear than LG (not as sharp). no problem
to turn the colour up a bit on the tv tho when playing an LG disc. I
don't know that many ppl realize that different brands of discs produce
different results.

You do realise you are writing digital DATA right? IF the data read is
the same as what was written, there will be NO difference whatsoever
between brands.

well that's the theory, but I can see the difference. I always used TDK
discs, but then I got some LG discs, and the first time I used one, I
noticed that they produced a sharper but less colourful image. the
colour is also more 'pinky' than with the TDK disks which have more
natural colour.

What DOES happen is that some brands will produce less errors than
others in particular writer/reader combinations. The effect of those
errors depends on the player, but *rarely* (if ever) what you
describe. More usual just freezing/jerkiness, or pixelation.


anyway, I then burnt another LG of the same movie,
and it played just fine also! in all cases I have used the same burner
and source files. what do you think the problem could have been? just a
faulty disc? or somehow a 'bad burn'? I would have thought that quality
control these days would be so good that it's not possible (or likely)
for some discs in a batch to be bad, and that burners don't produce
'faulty' burns either these days.

You thought wrong then! And what many people don't realise is that a
marginal disk may play OK now, but not in a year or two. :-(

Best tip, always burn disks at a lower speed than what they are rated
at. I find 16x disks give far better burns in my writer when burnt at
8x. YMMV though. But if you don't know the actual written bit error
rate on the disk, you have NO idea.

Trevor.

--
"As long as there is this book [Koran] there will be no peace in the world"
-William Gladstone, four times PM of Great Britain
http://www.siotw.org/

 

[felix]

On 14-January-2016 5:29 PM, Robert wrote:

DVDs are old tech. It's time to move on from them. Use a smart
wifi-enabled TV and you can stream movies from your computer or other
devices.

I do stream from my PC as well, as I have a LAN connection from my
router, but if there's a movie I particularly want to keep I burn a DVD.
I also burn them to give to other ppl.

--
"As long as there is this book [Koran] there will be no peace in the world"
-William Gladstone, four times PM of Great Britain
http://www.siotw.org/