[mythtv-users] HD black bars on top and bottom of screen

[Steve Netting]

> On Wed, Nov 10, 2010 at 06:03:06AM -0500, Omari Norman wrote:
>> > Sounds like you have your PC set to the wrong output resolution,
>> > like maybe 1280x1024 or 1024x768.  Your TV will stretch the MythTV
>> > menu screen to fill the screen, but MythTV will add black bars at
>> > the top and bottom, since your resolution is set to a 4:3 ratio.
>> > Try changing your resolution to 1280x720 or 1920x1080, or whatever
>> > the native resolution of your TV is.
>>
>> Thanks. I have fiddled around with xorg.conf and xrandr. xrandr now says
>> that my output resolution is 1360x768. My TV manual says that a
>> supported resolution is 1366 x 768. It seems 1360 x 768 is a 16:9
>> resolution, yet I am still getting gray bands on the top and bottom of
>> the screen. They are taking up about a fourth of the screen, total.
>
> I tried playing the recorded files in mplayer instead of MythTV; when I
> hit "f" to make mplayer full screen, the recordings look perfect. MythTV
> adds the grey bands when it plays back the exact same files.
>

I remember I had similar problems some time ago and ended up finding a
random combination of resolution and 16:9 / 4:3 setup that worked.  I
recall I had the resolution set to the (near) native resolution of the
16:9 TV, but myth set to 4:3 - otherwise it seemed to convert recordings
to 16:9 when already running in a 16:9 resolution (resulting in black
bars).   The resultant output was perfect (despite the irregular
settings!) although the mplayer command (for videos, not recordings) did
also require a 1.5x pixel modification ... I don't remember the exact
details.

It worked for me so I never questioned it - and it's worked ever since
through several mythbuntu upgrades.   Perhaps things have improved on
later versions :)

Steve