Question on video MPEG, burning DVDs

In article <grazer-925484.10463716022008.RemoveThis@newsgroups.comcast.net>,
The Pet Goat <grazer.RemoveThis@tincan.net> wrote:

> My mistake; I believe I confused cropping with overscan from the TV.
> Here's the thing though. I just did an experiment. I made an MPEG-4
> from a DVD, then I burned that MPEG-4 to DVD (using Toast 8). No doubt
> about it, the second DVD has less of the picture than the original
> DVD. So some actual cropping occurred in this process. Something's
> happening here I don't understand.

What did you view the MPEG-4 on? Your tv or your computer? Assuming you
played it on widescreen tv through an MPEG-4/DivX-capable player, you
should make sure that your player's output is set to 16:9 (it might say
"widescreen"), and the tv output the same. I had stuff cropped to like
16:10 that I couldn't figure out until I played with the controls a bit.

I'm lost with all these new aspect ratios. Back when I was a young
editor, we had "academy" (which was 1:33 or 1:37, depending on your
point of view); we had "widescreen" (which was either 1:66 or 1:85); and
we had "'scope" (which was this and that). There was also 65/70mm stuff,
I guess, along with super-8 and 9.5. But it was easy to understand, not
like this rectangular-pixels-anamorphic-5:4 that's going around. Geez.
I'm a pretty clever guy too.
--
W. Oates

In article <fp7i6g$6v1$1@news.mixmin.net>,
Warren Oates <warren.oates RemoveThis @gmail.com> wrote:

> In article <grazer-925484.10463716022008 RemoveThis @newsgroups.comcast.net>,
> The Pet Goat <grazer RemoveThis @tincan.net> wrote:
>
> > My mistake; I believe I confused cropping with overscan from the TV.
> > Here's the thing though. I just did an experiment. I made an MPEG-4
> > from a DVD, then I burned that MPEG-4 to DVD (using Toast 8). No doubt
> > about it, the second DVD has less of the picture than the original
> > DVD. So some actual cropping occurred in this process. Something's
> > happening here I don't understand.
>
> What did you view the MPEG-4 on? Your tv or your computer? Assuming you
> played it on widescreen tv through an MPEG-4/DivX-capable player, you
> should make sure that your player's output is set to 16:9 (it might say
> "widescreen"), and the tv output the same. I had stuff cropped to like
> 16:10 that I couldn't figure out until I played with the controls a bit.

I never watched the MPEG-4 in this case. I'm comparing two DVDs. One
is the original. The second DVD comes from two conversions: Original
DVD -> MPEG-4 -> DVD. The latter DVD has been cropped relative to the
first DVD, through some unknown mechanism (unknown to me at least). I
am watching the DVDs on a standard 4:3 TV.

> I'm lost with all these new aspect ratios. Back when I was a young
> editor, we had "academy" (which was 1:33 or 1:37, depending on your
> point of view); we had "widescreen" (which was either 1:66 or 1:85); and
> we had "'scope" (which was this and that). There was also 65/70mm stuff,
> I guess, along with super-8 and 9.5. But it was easy to understand, not
> like this rectangular-pixels-anamorphic-5:4 that's going around. Geez.
> I'm a pretty clever guy too.

It's surprisingly complex.