Test your television overscan

remsleep · Post by **remsleep** » Fri Aug 12, 2005 3:05 am

I always used to wonder if the NTSC safe zones really needed to be so far inset within the frame (could televisions really be *that* bad?). I was surprised at how much even current high-end televisions still overscan....

I finally made a short animation that gives the pixel dimensions so you can just (to the nearest 10 pixels) see where your player/TV combination actually goes off the edge -- you may be surprised....The (tiny) DVD image is here:

http://studiotwentysomething.net/exhibi ... rscan.html

Amaze your friends and be the life of the party

trythil · Post by **trythil** » Fri Aug 12, 2005 6:00 am

Can't this already be done with the standard safe region template?

remsleep · Post by **remsleep** » Fri Aug 12, 2005 11:54 am

Aa -- trythil. Mata aimashita ne. Ogenki desu ka?

I posted this not as an aid to video production (as you say, an NTSC project needs to respect the standard safe zones) -- it's a tool to measure how badly any particular television really does overscan the visible screen.

I originally had thought that only "old" televisions would have any significant amount of overscan, but it seems not to be the case. Even digital televisions! (mine gives less than a 460 scanline-equivalent of the original 480).