[mythtv] Zoom -vs- Aspect -- need a custom setting

[Daniel Kristjansson]

On Sun, 2007-05-06 at 08:48 -0400, David Frascone wrote:
> This worked perfectly for my HD and SD sizes.  Now everything looks 
> perfect *except* for video captured over firewire.  It is still top and 
> bottom letterboxed.

Is the aspect ratio of the image correct?

I assume you've tried the different screen settings in the STB's
setup menus. Some STB's do have this problem even after you have
tried all the screen options. They transcode everything to some
'standard' resolution, which is always much worse that the
original 1080i or 720p for HD content.

Assuming the aspect ratio is correct (circles in the video are actually
circular, not ovals), and none of the pre-set zoom
modes work for you, I think you can safely start working on
this feature you proposed.

What you want to do is use manual zoom to zoom into the frame
until it looks right. Then instead of hitting the 'SELECT'
action to save this zoom for the current session, you hit some
other key, say 'S' for 'SAVEMANUALZOOM' to save the zoom. Just
have this start a pop-up that asks for a name for this custom
zoom and a priority [-20,20]. Then save this mapping in the
settings table. Now when you construct the list for the preset
zooms/aspect ratio hacks, add any saved manual zooms from
highest priority to lowest priority, with the existing presets
in between the 1st and 0th priority saved zooms. You'll also
need to add some means for deleting manual zooms, one way might
be to use the 'D' for 'DELETE' key in the manual zoom mode to
delete any manual zooms that use the same zoom data as the current zoom.
Then take care of the corner cases, like what
happens if you save a manual zoom and make that the default
startup zoom, then later delete this manual zoom?

-- Daniel