[mythtv-users] "zoom" and/or crop video during recording

[Chris Pinkham]

> > Why even replace it if we can strip it off?  Myth knows how to handle 
> > automatically adding the black bars during playback if the aspect ratio
> > of the video doesn't match the aspect ratio of the display.
> 
> Yes.  replace during playback, not encode.

OK, I misunderstood. :)  I thought you meant replace it in the file so the
file was the same aspect as the source but with clean (ie, no static or
other junk) black bars.  Guess I assumed too much.

This idea has been brought up before and could probably be implemented
fairly easily using code like the blank-frame commercial detection stuff.
Nobody has got around to doing it though.  I might take a shot at it one
day, I notice more and more shows are showing letterboxed on 4:3 sets
(probably since they started out in HD and are showing analog for us lowly
people without HD yet). :)  Not sure how much of the bitrate it saves in
the end though so maybe it's more of a convenience thing.

-- 

Chris