Small Picture when Recorded to DVD

Question

Hello, Many times I’ve copied TV programmes from my Sky+ disc to re-writeable DVDs via my DVD burner/player, thence to editing software - Adobe Premier Elements (APE) -  on my PC, to remove advertisements etc., and then I've burnt them to  blank DVDs to be shown on my TV. Basic, simple stuff and no problems ... until recently when I tried to do that with a film of about three hours length. That's longer than the programmes I usually burn to DVD from Sky, and meant that I had to set the DVD recorder to a 4-hour setting instead of the usual 2-hour or 1-hour setting, and in turn that meant that the film was recorded at a lower quality. Here’s the sequence of events:1. The film, when shown on TV from my Sky+ box, was at the normal size, i.e. it filled the (wide) screen;2. When burnt to a DVD-RW (let's call it the First DVD) and shown on TV it was still at the same size, filling the screen;3. When copied from the First DVD to APE on my PC it still filled the screen at the correct size;4. After editing on APE it was still at the same size on my PC;5. After using APE to burn it to a DVD-R (the Final DVD) it was still OK when shown on the PC by a media player; but6. When the Final DVD was shown on my TV via the DVD player, the picture had a black border around it and was exactly half the dimensions of the original Sky recording. Changing the picture ratio made no difference: the border remained and the image was smaller than the original. Since then I've tried various things with the help of someone who's cleverer than I regarding APE, but nothing has resolved the problem. However, he pointed out something strange, which was that the Sky+ box recorded to the First DVD with the frame size of 352 x 576 pixels, i.e. portrait format, not landscape, even though the film presented in landscape at every stage in the process. Would anyone have any ideas, please? Thanks, Ian

Answer 1

jrm wrote:
Just had FIOS installed, so I hope I am just missing some setting.
I tried out some HD movies in the VOD section. Problem is that they all play at about 1/2 size. There are black bars on the left/right AND top/bottom. In other words, I have a 16:9 picture, it is just sized at about 50% of the screen. Not to mention that the smaller picture doesn't even look that good.
SD VOD seems to work fine. Regular channels, HD and SD all play fine and fill the screen where appropriate. It is only the HD VOD content (free movies from HBO/Starz/Cinemax/etc.) that have the problem.
It this a problem with the service or is it just a setting on the DVR Box?
jrm,
This may be a silly question, but I have to ask- do you have a High Def television?
Regards,
Chris
Christian
Verizon Telecom
Fiber Solution Center
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