[mythtv-users] Widescreen

[Doug Zobel]

>>MythTV (the TV module) can't play DVD at all. You can start an external
>>  player from a Myth button, e.g. Xine or Ogle.
>
> Yeah, well that's what I was meaning really... I suppose what I'm asking
> is, if I launch Ogle for example, will it size it to fill up the screen?
> And if so, I guess that will make a 16:9 movie look bad?

I'm not sure about ogle, but mplayer (used by mythvideo) has a
'-monitoraspect' flag which can be used to tell it you're using a 16:9
resolution in X.  Then if possible, mplayer will detect the source (DVD or
file) aspect ratio correctly and adjust the output accordingly.  If
mplayer is unable to determine the source aspect ratio, you can help it
out with the '-aspect' flag.  I renamed my AVIs that couldn't be
autodetected to .av3 (for 4:3) or .av9 (for 16:9) and used the following
mythvideo-settings.txt:
  avi_helper=/usr/local/bin/mplayer -fs -zoom -quiet -monitoraspect 16:9 %s
  av3_helper=/usr/local/bin/mplayer -fs -zoom -quiet -aspect 4:3
-monitoraspect 16:9 %s
  av9_helper=/usr/local/bin/mplayer -fs -zoom -quiet -aspect 16:9
-monitoraspect 16:9 %s
  profile_movies=wav avi mpg mpeg divx mp3 wma av9 av3

FYI: my Gateway plasma TV does all sorts of aspect ratio zooming and
converting for s-video, composite and RF inputs, but for RGB or DVI
inputs, you get whatever the resolution is set to with no adjustments by
the TV.