As I am doing some further investigating I am discovering that I didn't put enough info in the original question.
Rendering 720 x 580 to mpeg 1 this seems to give some different settings than mpeg 2.
Mpeg 2 doesn't let you customize the frame size. It sets it at a defaulted 720 x 480 which doesn't fill the screen.

I am testing the new settings now to see if this will work better.
But please, if you have any better suggestions as to how to make this work out better I welcome your input.

Don't used mpeg1.

The video track and rendering need to be set at 720x480. However, I believe you're tying to set it up as a wide screen project, correct? If so, you need the Pixel Aspect Ratio (in project and media Properties) to be set at 1.2121. You probably have the video track set to 0.9091.

If you do the math, 480x1.2121 is just over 580 which is why the overlay jpeg renders fine in your, what I assume to be, wide screen project.

Is the video file's native PAR 1.2121?

720x580 is narrower than 4:3, not wider.

Thank you for your response.
No, I'm not trying for widescreen, just regular 4:3, but I seem to be somewhat deficient in figuring out the conversion controls.
Whats really baffling is that VMS 8 has all these various rendering options but the only thing that I am being told works well is mpeg 2, which I discovered is true, but then the controls in DVD arch. don't seem to keep it filling the whole screen or there is something wrong with my understanding of how to set the controls for the sizing.
I just need to know what is optimum for making the video fill the whole screen and it stay that way. This is what I am using:
VMS 8 - Display set at 720x580x32
DVD Arch 5.2
Aiseesoft Total Media Converter Platinum - a great converter

I'm up against a time issue. 6 hrs of video that I've edited and inserted slides, broken up into 6 1hr parts. So, I need to render this all within reason quickly and get it out to my friend, but I keep running into these issues of the video not staying full screen.

By-the-way, I don't think that I have seen this acronym before "PAR" except when dealing with stage lighting :) What does it mean?

I greatly appreciate your help!

PAR = Pixel Aspect Ratio

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pixel_aspect_ratio

Thanks EricLNZ,

As I am looking at the original video specs, the PAR is set at 1.0000.

I have now reset as I am understanding it the Properties at:
NTSC DV (720X480, 29,970 FPS)
PAR 0.9091

Unfortunately it is not filling my preview screen. How do I achieve this?

Very simple solution is to open up Pan/Crop on the event and choose 'match output aspect'. This will crop the image to fit perfectly, but it will mean losing some of the image.

I'm guessing the problem is that your original source material just isn't the same shape as the desired output, so you have to either include the whole image and end up with empty space, or lose some of the image to fill the frame, or some compromise between them.

Just because two rectangles are both rectangles is no guarantee that they'll fit inside each other perfectly.

Thanks for the help, I've never tried "Match Output Aspect".
I'll try that when I get home.

It will not stay the way It is set when starting to render to mpeg 2. How do you stop this from happening. Or is there a better render option?

MPEG2 requires that the frame dimensions be multiples of 8, so you can't choose 580. You can use 576 or 584. Many other codecs have similar restrictions.

If you're trying to make a DVD/ SD television compliant file then you must render to 720x480. In this case you should also set up your project for 720x480 and choose either standard or widescreen, then fit everything into this frame.

Of course, this is for NTSC. If you're in PAL-land then use 720x576.