Aspect ratio

[AndersNolberger]

I have used SageTV for a couple of days now and I am mostly happy. But I do not like the way aspect ratios is handled.

I have a widescreen television (Plasma) that is connected with DVI to my computer. Most of the programs I watch with Sage is in 4:3 ratio. I do not want to stretch/distort the picture and prefere to have sidebars with the aspect ratio of the image correct. When I am watching analog sources on the Plasma I can "zoom" in the picture so that I miss the top and bottom of the picture but get less sidebars. I have not found a way to make that happen in Sage.

But the most annoying is when I watch letterboxed material. I choose 16:9 or fill in the settings and a vertical zoom of approx. 133. That works for many programs BUT some programs has subtiles that is in the black area of the letterboxed film. When I zoom that is outside the view. In these cases it woul be nice to be able to move the picture up so that the subtitles get in the viewable area.

I also would like to map the "move picture" commands to buttons on my remote control.

I think that the system for aspect ratios needs to be redone. I would like to create my own settings like Zoom/Fill/4:3 with custom settings. Then map a remote button to swap between theese settings.

I would also like to map the custom settings to different channels and sources so that I automatically get Fill for DVD and 4:3 for some channels and Zoom for some other.

I hope my wishes make sence.

One other minor annoyance is the date and time format. I would like it in internaional 24 hour format and not the american am/pm way.

Thank you for a great program
Anders Nolberger

[David Lawrance]

You CAN create your own aspect ratios and map each one to a different remote button (I wish that I could toggle among the different ratios with one button.) Look under the multimedia settings in the detailed setup. This wasn't obvious to me, at first. You can set separate custom x and y magnifications for each one of the listed aspect ratios by selecting among them usingh the radio buttons. Each one remembers its own custom setting.

Aspect ratios are mapped to keypresses under the Commands tab.

The other things you mention would be nice!

David