Do Panasonic DMR crop HDMI output?
 

Hello, I wanted to ask this question to anyone that had one of the earlier Panasonic DMR's with HDMI output that were used as passthroughs for VCR's. I read on here that the analog outputs for these DMR's cropped the sides from the input image from 720x576 to 704x576 and padded with black bars to fill to 720x576. It was said that the HDMI output did not crop the sides like the analog outputs do. Then, I saw in a couple threads they noticed it also cuts off about a bit from the top of the frame as well when they used analog outputs. As such I was unable to confirm from these threads if those DMR's still crop out the top of the frame regardless of using HDMI output.

I didn't want to risk bumping year old threads, and some users from these threads haven't been active for a while. I was hoping someone could help me confirm this as I would like if the DMR's could show the full analog signal without introducing overscan nonsense.

Referenced threads:
https://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/vid...-dmr-es15.html
https://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/vid...-cropping.html
https://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/vid...ssthrough.html

It looks like an overscan mask, not a crop. Lots of devices do this, even VCRs. The overscan is fair game for imperfections. That's why it exists, as a buffer to the actual images to the edges.

Ah I see. Thank you for the reply.

I can't see what you're seeing specifically, but would keep in mind that broadcast spec NTSC video is 486 lines vertically, not 480. Different cards will ignore some of the top or bottom to some degree and you usually can't change which of the center 480 lines are kept. The very top line is actually a "half" line meaning that the video doesn't start until about halfway into the frame and it'll be black to the left of it, so that's why you'll see slightly different vertical croppings between different capture cards. For VHS and most tape formats, we'd generally want to get rid of the last several lines because head switching noise tends to be there, but not always if it is a first generation tape.

I actually don't think there were that many DMR versions released in the USA anyway that had HDMI output, which is why you usually see people use the S-Video output in their chains. I think that was more common in European markets for Panasonic machines to have HDMI output though.

Other brands were a little more common to have HDMI output I think.

Of note, SDI capture devices and TBCs tend to keep the full frame (486 line) resolution.

Sorry I hadn't seen this reply. Yeah it masks those top couple of lines including that half line one. I guess it's not a big deal, but still bothers me a bit. I'm getting the ES45, so I don't know if it behaves identically, so I'm hoping it doesn't mask anything. I looked in the manual and found an option to shift the displayed image lower, but it probably just shifts the entire frame + its masking, lower. It's still worth a shot to check I guess.