Adjusting screen size for TV & video

[Graham Meredith]

I have a G400TV capture card and was wanting to know if there is any way of adjusting the screen size for playback on a TV. Whenever I play back a clip I've captured using either PC-VCR or Avid Cinema, the image is slightly bigger than the TV screen (in correct proportions), but is OK on my monitor. My TV doesn't have screen size adjustments. Using Powerdesk 5.25 utilities I can adjust the monitor size and position, and when using the dual head utility I can adjust the TV size and position, but it doesn't affect the TV in normal single head TV out. I want to send clips to video tape. Any suggestions?

Graham

Setup:
P111 450
Gigabyte BX6E motherboard
Seagate 10.2G 5400rpm HD
Ricoh MP6200 CDRW
Creative 48x CDROM
128MB RAM
Marvel G400-TV video capture card
Creative AWE64G sound card
Turtle beach Malibu sound card
Winbond 10MB/s Network card
Windows 98SE
Avid Cinema 1.0.1
using Powerdesk 5.25
and Video Tools 1.51

[Pertti]

That is how it should be.

The problem is your TV, which is hiding part of the picture, and that is also normal.
If your TV was not sold as a "Full Screen" model, there is nothing wrong with your TV either.

Tune your PC-VCR and TV into the same TV channel, you can see more of the picture with PC-VCR than with the TV-set.

[SteveC]

One word: overscan

[Dr Mordrid]

Correct.

To make sure you get everything showing on a TV you have to place things within what's called the "Safe title area". This is a rectangle about 10-15% in from all edges (depending on how "safe" you want to be).

For a 10% safe area using the Marvels 704x480 full frame this would mean placing all titles and graphics (as well as pertinent data of the shoot) within a rectangle bounded by;

Left border: 71 (70.4 rounded up)
Right border: 633
Top border: 48
Bottom border: 432

The Inscriber website has an illustration of the saft title area on one of their help pages;

http://www.oceansystems.com/CGScreenMarkers.htm

If you've ever seen a movie being shot on one of those entertainment news programs you'll notice they have this area taped off on the preview monitor the Director uses. This is so he can tell if the take they just shot fell within the safe area or needs reshooting.

Dr. Mordrid



[This message has been edited by Dr Mordrid (edited 01 November 2000).]

[Graham Meredith]

Thanks everyone for your help, much appreciated. That explains a lot, especially since my TV is a very old one, before the era of video editing! I find it useful to use, though, because it gives me an idea of what things will look like in the least techo households of some of my friends, if I want to give them videos I've edited. Thanks again!