[mythtv-users] Playback looks at screensize not at monitor or windowsize

[Michael T. Dean]

On 06/11/2015 08:56 PM, Hika van den Hoven wrote:
> Friday, June 12, 2015, 2:00:30 AM, you wrote:
>
>>   I recently got a new extra monitor for my workcomputer and was
>>   experimenting with displaying mythtv on there. The configuration is
>>   two monitors (1920x1080 and 1600x1200) in one screen (3520x1200)
>>   I have tried both displaying mythtv in a full window on the new
>>   screen and in a smaller one 1280x720. Everything goes ok until I try
>>   playback, either live or recorded. I get a display with 16:9
>>   stretched out to 3520:1200 or 44:15. It seems Mythtv looks at the
>>   screen size and not at the monitor or window size.
>>   I set up the windowsize in Screen Settings with "Use GUI size for TV
>>   playback" checked. Above there I now can select which screen to
>>   display on (0, 1 or All) but of cause they are all the same, the
>>   monitors are organized in one screen. Also I can select an aspect
>>   ratio (16:9, 16:10 and 4:3) bot not 44:15. It actually says there it
>>   cannot query a xinerama display and I should specify it, which I can
>>   understand. But I cannot, for the right values are missing.
>>   Could  this field be split in two or to some running percentage, so
>>   you can specify something? The three possibilities are nonsense for a
>>   xinerama display, it will always be two or more monitors linked
>>   together. Either that or it should look at the GUI setting for the
>>   aspect ratio.
>>    I can get a somewhat
>>   decent display by falsely telling the 16:9 picture is 4:3.
> I found the solution. I suddenly remembered you can adjust settings
> through mythweb. I set XineramaMonitorAspectRatio to 2.933333
> It now shows up like that in The Screen Setting. But you still can not
> edit it there. It should be a free fill field.

You should use the frontend settings editor to set the Appearance 
settings properly, and you shouldn't ever insert disallowed values 
directly into settings with MythWeb's 
(dangerous/broken-because-it-allows-invalid-values) settings editor.  If 
you have any kind of Xinerama-type multi-monitor display (including 
TwinView or what-have-you), you *must* set the 2 Appearance settings:

Monitor aspect ratio
The aspect ratio of a Xinerama display cannot be queried from the 
display, so it must be specified.

and:

Display on screen
Run on the specified screen or spanning all screens.

and should not (ever--for anyone, even without Xinerama) set the 
Playback setting:

Video aspect override
When enabled, these will override the aspect ratio specified by any 
broadcaster for all video streams.

where, if (for anyone at all) it seems like "Video aspect override" 
needs to be set to get a proper display, you have misconfigured 
something else (like, for example, your X configuration for 
DPI/DisplaySize).

It seems you're saying you think you need to set "Monitor aspect ratio" 
to 44:15, but that's not right because neither of your monitors has a 
44:15 aspect--one is 16:9 and the other is 4:3 (assuming square pixels, 
which is almost definitely the case).  Since (I'm pretty sure) you're 
going to be displaying the video on one or the other monitor (and don't 
want it stretched across both monitors with some funky stepped 
letterboxing--not to mention an annoying bezel break in the picture), 
you simply specify the aspect ratio of the monitor on which you're 
displaying the video.

Since you seem to be saying that it doesn't work when you specify a 
proper value for "Monitor aspect ratio", I can conclude that you have 
some other (related) setting misconfigured.  For example, if you do not 
specify "Display on screen" (or specify it incorrectly), you may get 
some strange behavior, possibly exactly what you're seeing.  Similarly, 
if your X configuration for DPI/DisplaySize (for /either/ monitor) is 
incorrect or incorrectly calculated (if not specified), you'd get broken 
behavior, such as you're seeing.

Mike