The “Conversion” tab in DVD Catalyst Global Settings shows options that affect various aspects of the conversion.

*Conversion priority. This setting determines how much power of your computer is used for conversions. While not really noticable on multi-core systems, on older computers, this can greatly affect the conversion speed. Setting it higher will enable DVD Catalyst to use more power for the conversion, however, less is available for other computer tasks. If you use your computer for other tasks while a conversion is running, it’s recommended to leave it set to Normal.

*Allow upscaling. By default, DVD Catalyst does not “upscale” video. This means that if you selected a device with a resolution that is bigger than the screen size of the movie you are converting, the resulting movie screen size will not be made bigger (example: converting a DVD to a HD screen resolution). The reason for this is that up -scaling during conversion greatly reduces quality, and it also increases the time it takes to create the video file. Most video player applications automatically scale the video bigger, and do this more efficient and at better quality. By enabling this option, DVD Catalyst will increase the video screen size to the selected resolution.

*Convert only X minutes of each file. If you want to compare quality of a couple of settings, or perform a benchmark of some sorts, you can enable this to have DVD Catalyst create short conversions. All the other functionality (including monitor folders, remember files etc) are still used, so if you set DVD Catalyst up to run fully automatic, you can verify the functionality completely. Remember to disable this option when you are finished with testing though.

*Enable boosterpack. (only visible when the booster pack is is installed). If the DVD Catalyst booster pack is installed, and you run into issues of some kind, you can turn it off with this setting. With this setting disabled, DVD Catalyst will run with it’s original (slightly slower, but more compatible) conversion engine.

*Thread count. (only visible when the booster pack is is installed). The DVD Catalyst Booster pack can run a couple of conversion formats with multiple threads at once. A thread is basically a portion of the conversion, and by adjusting the thread count the conversion engine can make better use of additional cores or processors. The default 8 works fine on even older or limited computers.

*Save conversion status on close. If you use DVD Catalyst’ Auto shutdown feature (General tab) you can enable this option to have DVD Catalyst show you the last conversion status when you run it the next day. The “conversion status”, which is shown when a conversion is running, contains information about start time/stop time and conversion speed information for each individual converted item.

Cropping. Commonly known as black-bar removal. Cropping is used to remove black borders from DVD video content. Because DVDs were invented when Wide screen was not commonplace, the official DVD standard did not account for the different screen size of the video content in this format. To produce wide-screen content that conforms to the official square-screen DVD standard, black padding is added to top and bottom of the video, which effectively makes the movie screen size the proper size. Recent DVD players are capable to detect these black borders, and if they are set up to display content on a wide-screen TV, they can remove these borders to fill the screen.

When you convert a movie, these black borders are, because they are part of the video, actually converted as well. When we remove these black borders, the video section itself ends up smaller, and thus the quality is improved throughout the section that is left. What many people do not realize is that if you have a file that does not have black borders, but you play it on a device that uses a different screen kind (wide screen movie on a square screen device for example) the video player itself actually adds black borders to the video to fill the screen. Because of this, DVD Catalyst offers a couple of different kinds of black bar removal options.

*No cropping. This leaves the video section unmodified. If there are black borders as actual part of the video, they will also end up in the created video file.

*Remove black bars from file. This removes the video padding from the original file during conversion, but leaves the actual video section of the video unmodified. When watched on a device with a different screen kind, it will still have black borders (unless you use the Zoom function on the player itself)

*Remove black bars from device. This removes the video padding from the original file during conversion, but will also cut of parts of the sides of the actual video part based on the selected screen size. This setting makes any kind of movie full screen on the selected screen size in the device profile, regardless of the screen kind. A wide-screen movie on a square-screen device, or a square-screen movie on a wide-screen device, it will always end up full screen.

*Fullscreen stretch. This removes the black borders from the original file during conversion, and then stretches the video to make it full screen on the selected device profile. You will not loose anything from the actual video content, but the video will look different, and depending on the selected device even distorted. A widescreen movie on a square screen device will have people appear longer and thinner, and a square screen movie on a wide screen device will have people look short and stubby. This setting is only recommended if you are converting video content of the same kind as the device screen.

*Add black bars to fit resolution. Required for PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Portable HQ profiles. This setting adds black padding the the video to make it fit the exact selected resolution. Some devices (PS3, PSP) can only play content of a very specific screen size, and will not play it otherwise. The normal PSP profiles work fine with every crop-setting, however the HQ profile can only be played if it is exactly 720×480. anything bigger than 480×272 and different from 720×480 will not play.