DVD player: stretch 4:3 show to 16:9 screen?

horseflesh · #1 07-20-2006, 12:42 AM

If I play a 4:3 DVD in Sage's media player, it ends up "pillarboxed." That is, there are vertical black bars on the left and right and the video in a little square in the middle of the screen.

I would like to force the 4:3 image to stretch horizontally, filling my 16:9 display. That doesn't seem to be an option in the aspect ratio settings, though. None of the choices available will do that. Is there any way I can make this happen?

Yes, I know stretching 4:3 to fill a wide screen is ugly. I have a reason for needing it, though. I have a 4:3 HDTV with a manual "squeeze" mode for anamorphic 16:9 programming. For example, my HTPC signal. To fill the screen with 4:3 programming played by the HTPC, I need to have the software do a horizontal stretch, and the TV do a vertical stretch. (!) Otherwise, I have a tiny square in the middle of the screen with the 4:3 show in it, which is ridiculous.

gplasky · #2 07-20-2006, 10:19 AM

Try using VMR9 instead of overlay.

Gerry

horseflesh · #3 07-20-2006, 11:32 AM

Thanks guys!

horseflesh · #4 07-20-2006, 09:19 PM

Update:

The advanced aspect ratio settings don't help much. Sage tries to keep you from making mistakes by always keeping the picture free of distortion. Unfortunately, I need some distortion.

When I set the DVD player to VMR9, I was able to get the "fill" option to fill the width of the video area, though. Then I "unsqueezed" with the TV remote, so the horizontally stretched image got vertically stretched too, filling my 4:3 TV. Almost there! But I needed more vertical stretch to get the image looking right... and I can't use the aspect ratio tweaks to get it since they won't let you distort the picture. I'm closer though!

Something else strange... the cursor in DVD menus does not show up when DVDs run in 3d. (3d enabled, full screen exclusive enabled, VMR9 mode. I tried ffdshow and Sage mpeg2 decoders. Nvidia decoders fill the screen with green barf unless I use overlay mode.)

HTPC isn't for the faint of heart!

blade · #5 07-21-2006, 06:01 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by horseflesh

Update:

The advanced aspect ratio settings don't help much. Sage tries to keep you from making mistakes by always keeping the picture free of distortion. Unfortunately, I need some distortion.

I don't think it's Sage preventing you from doing this. I run 4:3 content stretched to fit my 16:9 screen all the time. Including letterboxed content stretched both horizontally and vertically.

If you're using the Nvidia decoder you might try changing the aspect ratio the decoder is set for. I have seen certain combinations of settings prevent stretching.

stanger89 · #6 07-21-2006, 06:09 AM

You need to set an AR mode to about 133% vertical zoom to vertically stretch video that's letterboxed.

horseflesh · #7 07-21-2006, 11:34 AM

I'll keep tinkering, thanks!

nielm · #8 07-24-2006, 08:31 AM

More Aspect Ratio information here:
http://www.sage-community.org/index....i/AspectRatios

IncredibleHat · #9 07-30-2006, 09:39 AM

Somewhat related note...

Am I crazy in wanting to "zoom" (overscan) a SUPER letterboxed movie? You know, the ones that, even though you fill a 16:9 WSTV, it STILL has top and bottom bars?

Most of the video information on the far right and left is superfluous, so many times I have wanted to simply "zoom a little bit more" to push the left right sides OFF the screen, so that the top and bottom of the actual video is touching the top and bottom of my WSTV (widescreentv).

Am I just crazy in thinking this? Unfortunately I DONT use SageTV for DVD playback (it refuses to play in any decent quality, and doesnt listen to my remote!)... so I cant use the manual percentage changes... which would be a frelling hell anyways, as I would have to manually change those back and forth between one movie thats 16:9 and another thats ... superduper widescreen (what is that called anyhow? 20:9?)

blade · #10 07-30-2006, 10:42 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by IncredibleHat

Am I just crazy in thinking this? Unfortunately I DONT use SageTV for DVD playback (it refuses to play in any decent quality, and doesnt listen to my remote!)... so I cant use the manual percentage changes... which would be a frelling hell anyways, as I would have to manually change those back and forth between one movie thats 16:9 and another thats ... superduper widescreen (what is that called anyhow? 20:9?)

Sage has 4 different aspect settings, all of which can be set to stretch the content however you wish. It shouldn't be that big of a deal to setup one for each type of content you have.

IncredibleHat · #11 07-30-2006, 02:34 PM

The problem I came across, is it also affects the TV side of things.

And... when I tried adjusting like "Fill" to be a 150% increase to fill a super-letterboxed show to fill the screen vertically... it screwed up ALL the other aspects ? Made them all shoved to the top of the screen, and some in bad proportions. I couldn't clear it out either after it did that. I had to uninstall sage and reinstall it to get the aspects back to normal.

THAT was really upsetting... heh.

blade · #12 07-30-2006, 03:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by IncredibleHat

The problem I came across, is it also affects the TV side of things.

And... when I tried adjusting like "Fill" to be a 150% increase to fill a super-letterboxed show to fill the screen vertically... it screwed up ALL the other aspects ? Made them all shoved to the top of the screen, and some in bad proportions. I couldn't clear it out either after it did that. I had to uninstall sage and reinstall it to get the aspects back to normal.

THAT was really upsetting... heh.

Then you have a problem somewhere because it works fine for others. When adjusting an aspect ratio the settings should only affect that one ratio not all of them.

I'm not really sure what you mean by it affects the TV side of things. If you set a ratio to stretch by a certain % then of course if you use that ratio for TV it's going to stretch like it was set up to do.

I have the ratios in Sage setup to stretch every type of content I watch and I use the automatic ratio switcher to change from one to the other so I rarely have to manually change the ratio and everything works fine.

IncredibleHat · #13 07-30-2006, 04:47 PM

"automatic ratio switcher" ? What XML are you using? I'm just on the default that installs fresh with SageTV. I havn't really had the urge to delve into 3rd party interface mods yet.

Doesn't really matter though now, I switched and am using Zoomplayer for all DVD... and it has a really nice aspect ratio handler, plus it allows for 'zoom out' to blow up a video to fit vertically

Works real good too! I just have to think now, if I want to buy yet another piece of software, or still try and get Sage DVD working to satisfactory results

LOL

horseflesh · #14 07-31-2006, 12:18 AM

I also observed that some of those aspect settings in Sage don't stick to just the AR you are fiddling with. It didn't mess me up so bad I had to reinstall though.

blade · #15 07-31-2006, 06:35 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by horseflesh

I also observed that some of those aspect settings in Sage don't stick to just the AR you are fiddling with. It didn't mess me up so bad I had to reinstall though.

You guys need to file a bug report because it's not supposed to do that.

IncredibleHat · #16 07-31-2006, 09:07 AM

If I was knew it was for certain... It could have just been a crazy fluke... but seeing how difficult it was to clear it up, I am a bit reluctant to go messing with it again to find out.

I guess I'll report it ... in case they see something obvious, like its writing to the wrong spot in the properties files.

IncredibleHat · #17 07-31-2006, 03:44 PM

I reported the bug.

I also messed around with it some more... dangerously yeah.

I set "FILL" to 133%x133%. THEN before doing anything else, I selected each aspect ratio under the Multimedia and re-typed in all numbers on each one just like they were.

Then I went to watch a DVD, and TV, and flipped around in the aspect ratios. No unholy messups, and the "FILL" actually zoomed out perfectly on a 2.35:1 DVD (lopping off the right and left sides to get the image to fit vertically). Worked good!

Now... is there a key command that 'cycles' through aspect ratios? I SO HATE navigating that massive menu everytime I have to change the aspect (even while watching TV). I see HIP list out a command for each and every aspect ratio... but thats very unintuitive. I just want a SINGLE button to set to 'cycle' through them. Like my TV has itself (but that doesnt work with the HTPC, as its a direct DVI input).

BobPhoenix · #18 07-31-2006, 05:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by IncredibleHat

Now... is there a key command that 'cycles' through aspect ratios? I SO HATE navigating that massive menu everytime I have to change the aspect (even while watching TV). I see HIP list out a command for each and every aspect ratio... but thats very unintuitive. I just want a SINGLE button to set to 'cycle' through them. Like my TV has itself (but that doesnt work with the HTPC, as its a direct DVI input).

See this post.

BobP.

IncredibleHat · #19 07-31-2006, 05:55 PM

Heh... thanks for the link. Perfect answer.

blade · #20 07-31-2006, 05:56 PM

If you use the aspect ratio switcher you can set it up to change ratios based on what you're watching. You can select the default ratio to use for recordings, the default for imported video, and you can assign ratios for specific shows. I think you can select one for DVDs as well, but I don't use Sage for DVDs right now so I'm not certain.

There are settings for channels and tuners as well. So if you get a show on HD and SD channels you could set it up to use different ratios for the show depending on which tuner or channel it was captured on.

If you switch ratios much, it's a handy import to have. Even if you have to manually switch for a particular DVD or imported video from time to time it still beats having to do it every time.

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