Vertical distortion

RobertWA

Senior Member Joined: Sep 20, 2008 00:18 Messages: 223 Offline

Solved by

Mar 23, 2013 13:12

Hi all,

I noticed with a recent project that my movie was distorted when viewed through a TV - vertical stretching so people looked "thinner" than they actually are. When played on the computer there is no problem, but the distortion was present on three different TVs I used. In trying to resolve this issue I tried the following four scenarios.

In all cases the same footage was used, 16:9 format SD video, burned to DVD. All editing (trim, transitions, titles, etc) was done using PD11, then:

Scenario 1. After editing I went to Create Disc and burned to DVD. The distortion was present.

Scenario 2. After editing I went to Create Disc and burned to a folder. I then used Cyberlink's Power 2 Go to burn the DVD. No distortion.

Scenario 3. After editing I went to Produce and produced an AVI file of my movie. I then opened a new project, imported my AVI file, made no further changes to it, and went to Create Disc and burned to DVD. The distortion was present. (Not surprising since this is only a slight variation of my first scenario.)

Scenario 4. As in Scenario 3 I produced an AVI file and imported it into a new project in another well-known short-named video editing software and burned to DVD. No distortion.

Has anyone else experienced this distortion?

I know in the past several members of this forum have recommended burning to a folder first and then using another program to burn the DVD (either Cyberlink's Power 2 Go or some other software), but the reasons for recommending this seem to have had nothing to do with the quality of the finished product - more of a workflow issue.

It is also interesting that the competitor software, using exactly the same process, manages to produce the DVD without the distortion.

My processes now will include burning to a folder for all future projects, but it would be nice if I could complete the entire project within Power Director.

Cheers

Robert

James1

Senior Contributor Location: Surrey, B.C., Canada Joined: Jun 10, 2010 16:20 Messages: 1783 Offline

Mar 23, 2013 14:58

Hi,
The distortion on the various TV's may be due to the way the TV's handle 16:9 ratio, some can be adjusted some can't, I would check the TV for the various options and see what happens. Since you stated it plays fine on the computer.
Jim Intel i7-2600@3.4Gz Geforce 560ti-1GB Graphic accelerator, windows 7 Premium 12GB memory

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vn800rider

Senior Contributor Location: Darwen, UK Joined: May 15, 2008 04:32 Messages: 1949 Offline

Mar 23, 2013 15:15

Whilst this is in no way the answer, although it might have some part to play in it, I came across this article recently and thought it generally quite illuminating about how the complications we all come across from time to time have arisen. I cannot vouch for its accuracy.

http://essayweb.net/miscellany/anamorphic.shtml

Cheers
Adrian Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated. (see below)
Confucius
AMD Phenom IIX6 1055T, win10, 5 internal drives, 7 usb drives, struggling power supply.

jmone

Senior Contributor Location: Australia Joined: Nov 26, 2010 00:05 Messages: 706 Offline

Mar 24, 2013 06:37

You may want to check the following is correctly set in PD:
1) Edit --> Aspect Ratio --> 16:9 is selected
2) For your DVD's make sure Create Disc --> 2D Disc --> DVD Video (Disc Type) --> Widescreen (16:6) (Select the video recording format)

I recently did a bunch on Matt 16:9 to Anamorphic 16:9 MPEG-2 file conversions and PD worked well. PD 64 Bit-Win10 64 Bit-32GB RAM-80TB HDD
Sony FX6 - 500Mbps 4k/50p AVC-I HLG
Canon XF400 - 150Mbps 4k/50p AVC
GoPro Hero6 Black
Pana HS700-28Mbps 1080/50p AVC (High@L4.2)
Canon HV20-HDV 25Mbps 16:9 1440x1080/25p MPEG

RobertWA

Senior Member Joined: Sep 20, 2008 00:18 Messages: 223 Offline

Mar 24, 2013 07:38

Thank you for the responses.

When I first noticed the distortion I immediately thought that it was something to do with settings on the TV set, since it played perfectly on the computer. That is why I tried it on two additional TVs, but with the same results. The distortion becomes very evident when the DVD is played through a 4:3 TV. Being a 16:9 movie we get the letterbox effect, with the black bands top and bottom of the screen. With the good (undistorted) versions, these black bands are the same size. With the distorted version the band at the bottom of the screen is much narrower than the top band, so the picture is stretched vertically.

My Create Disc settings are all OK.

Being now aware of the problem I can use the Power 2 Go work-around so that my DVDs are not distorted. What I find interesting (or intriguing, or annoying) is the fact that the competitor software does the job perfectly, without burning to a folder, whereas PD does not. As I said earlier, it would be nice to be able to do the whole job within PD.

I would be interested to learn whether anyone else has noticed similar distortion when using the Create Disc module, or perhaps could replicate my scenarios to see if they get similar results.

Cheers

Robert