unwanted cropping/zooming of Blu-Ray video

nobodyinparticular wrote on 1/17/2011, 7:23 AM
Howdy -

Last month I created a series of videos using Sony Vegas Movie Studio 10. The videos are all HD-format, 720P, and include some captions typically located near the side or bottom of the frame.

Yesterday I burned all of these movies onto a Blu-Ray disc, along with a picture compilation. In the "Preview Disc" mode on my PC, everything looks great, but when I play the Blu-Ray disc on my TV, the image is zoomed in somewhat; many of my captions have been partially cropped off.

Question: where is this cropping/zooming happening? Is DVD Architect (I'm using Version 5.0, Build 128) doing it before it burns the Blu-Ray disc, or is it my TV, or is it my Blu-Ray disc player?

The TV is only 18 months old, a Panasonic 65" plasma (TH-58PZ850U). I've cycled through all of the display modes I can find, and none of them shows the entire original video material.

The Blu-Ray disc player is a Panasonic DMP-BD80, also about 18 months old. I haven't been able to find any settings in its menu that alter the output.

After browsing DVD Architect's menus and help files, I'm aware of the existence of "safe areas," but I'm unclear on the concept. If I've got 720HD source material, and I'm creating 720HD output material, how can anything be getting cropped off?

Right now my primary concern is verifying whether the material is uncropped/unzoomed on the disc itself, because I would like to send it to some relatives and know that they will be able to read all of the captions. My secondary concerned is getting it to display properly on my own TV.

Any help in understanding/solving the problem is greatly appreciated.

Comments

Steve Grisetti wrote on 1/17/2011, 9:19 AM
As I say in my books, you will find these Safe Margins under the View menu, under Workspace Overlays.

The Title Safe Area will appear as guides around the inside of Workspace.

All TVs cut some video off the edge of your video frame. Keeping your text within the Title Safe Areas will ensure your complete titles appear on all TVs.
nobodyinparticular wrote on 1/17/2011, 9:57 AM
Thanks for the response. I understand why overscan was a necessity for old-fashioned analog TV's, but why is it still done for digital/HDTV's? Why would an HDTV be intentionally made to not show the entire 1280x720 (or 1920x1080) image being fed to it?
PeterDuke wrote on 1/17/2011, 5:25 PM
"Why would an HDTV be intentionally made to not show the entire 1280x720 (or 1920x1080) image being fed to it? "

You ask the manufacturers! I am sure that they will say that it is for compatibility with old analog videos which may have crud at the edges. I have heard that some modern TVs allow you to disable overscan but I haven't seen how to do that with my LG TV, so think that it can't be done.

I was hoping to be able to use my TV as a 50 inch 1920x1080 computer monitor, but the overscan kills that idea. (It works without overscan at a lower resolution, however.)

The industry is full of anomalies to retain backward compatibility that make life difficult. Interlacing and system colour levels are two more.