[mythtv] Stretching to 16:9 ?

Kristof Pelckmans kristof.pelckmans at antwerpen.be
Wed Oct 1 02:29:39 EDT 2003


A lot of people seem to get confused about the mode that is in CVS and the mode
that is requested. Let me start by pointing out that Mark is running mythtv on
a 4:3 screen (eg monitor) and I am using a 16:9 screen (eg widescreen tv) with
mythtv running on the 4:3 portion of the screen, with vertical black bands on
the left and the right. The difference in functionality can be perfectly
illustrated using the link quoted by Mark :
> <http://www.thedigitalbits.com/articles/anamorphic/anamorphic185demo.html>

The mode in CVS does
16:9 squashed in 4:3 input on 4:3 screen (image top right)
->
16:9 with black bars on 4:3 screen (image middle right)

The mode I suggested was
16:9 with black bars in 4:3 input on 16:9 screen (image bottom left)
->
16:9 on 16:9 screen (image bottom right)

The first mode is useful for displaying a specially encoded 16:9 image on a 4:3
monitor, while the second mode enables to stretch the normally encoded 16:9
image to a 16:9 widescreen tv (on the site described as the "zoom" mode).

Detecting a 16:9 image in a 4:3 image stands apart from the zooming
functionality. It would solve to issues :
1) save the unnecessary encoded black bars (in fact it is the sharp black edge
that kills compression ratios)
2) automatically zoom the image when mythtv runs on a 16:9 screen (saving a
keypress for the user when he sees that the image requires zooming)

The detection would make life easier but requires much more work and always uses
the zooming functionality.

Hope this makes things clear,

Kristof


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