[mythtv-users] Permanently changing aspect ratio on a recording

Michael T. Dean mtdean at thirdcontact.com
Tue Dec 2 02:47:59 UTC 2014


On 12/01/2014 09:27 PM, Hika van den Hoven wrote:

> having aspect override to 4:3 and zoom to auto works ok on my 16:9
> screen with both 16:9 and 4:3 shows.

If you set aspect ratio override to 4:3, you're telling MythTV to play 
every single video as if it were 4:3, regardless of what the video 
says.  The reason this seems to work is because your auto-zoom setting 
is then cropping and stretching things (after MythTV first squished 
them).  So, you've basically set two dueling settings that are actually 
just reducing image quality for you.

You're much better off setting up X properly (so that it knows the TV's 
physical aspect ratio as well as its pixel aspect ratio) and letting 
MythTV do the right thing based on what the video says (meaning disable 
the aspect ratio override).  For those occasional shows that are 
broadcast incorrectly, auto-zoom may actually work around the issue, but 
if not you could then manually zoom or use the one-off playback aspect 
ratio setting to say that the video is improperly coded or, if keeping 
the recording long term, fix the broken video to properly specify its 
aspect ratio.

Mike


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