Aspect Ratio issue

[sting7777]

I am running 1280x768 (15:9) and if I watch something recorded (4:3) in source there are some funky lines on the outer edges. So i simply changed to Fill and 104% and Sage adds black bars to the sides and blows up the picture enough to hide those scan lines.

BUT - the bars aren't black - they are dark gray or dark purple or something. If I switch from Source to Fill - you can see the bars change color.

Also - I can't get 16:9 to work at all. The settings just get screwy.

AND Cayars 17 STV doesnt keep individual settings for the AR. I can set them in the V2 STV and then switch back to Cayars (i think this works)

Anyways - I guess my I am just wondering how the fill mode works to stretch "behind" those non black bars.

Ultimately i would love two modes - one that is a 4:3 104% zoom and one that is a 15:9 104% zoom

thanks!

[stanger89]

I'm not entirely sure what the problem is but here's how the modes work:

Fill - stretches the video (based on settings) to fill the window/screen, there shouldn't be any bars unless they're in the recording or you have a zoom of < 100%

4x3 - stretches the video to fill a 4x3 area, calculated based on pixels

16x9 - stretches to fill a 16x9 pixel area (I'd expect small bars top and bottom with that res)

Source - Works like 4x3 or 16x9 based on the flags in the recording, ie it displays Sage recordings in a 4x3 area, and anamorphic DVD/HDTV in a 16x9 area.

As for the color of Sage's bars it should be black, check your properties file for videoframe/video_bg_color

[sting7777]

thanks for the reply. I'm super confused because on my old CRT RPTV at 1080i I had a problem with exactly this (I have an old thread about it).

Basically it worked the way you are saying - doing a fill just pushed the whole thing over including any artifacts. So as a result to get rid of the image distortion at the very edges of my 4:3 material - I did a Fill that basically slightly overscanned the 16:9 image of my TV so the artifacts get hidden beyond the viewable area of the TV.

I wanted at the time to have an option to keep it 4:3 but blow up the picture to hide the image artifacts.

This is the way its working on my new LCD. Which is great for 4:3 stuff - I run Fill at 104% and it perfectly crops my material and leaves it in 4:3. But that also means I can't fill the entire screen if I want to - specifically if I have Sage pick up a 16:9 HD broadcast - I like to zoom into the 16:9 image to fill the screen and get rid of the bars both top and bottom.

Very odd.

[sting7777]

could it be my decoder doing something wacky with the AR? im using nvidia's decoder and when I had the RPTV I was using a Sonic one.

When 16:9 AR is set to 100 100 0 0 - It still should change the shape of the picture right? Thats how I remember my RPTV working - 16:9 would blow it up to full screen, 4:3 would make it fot 4:3 exactly (not much change from source) and I used fill to get a stretch that looked less squished than 16:9, sort of a 16:9 ZOOM combo.

Its not. 16:9 4:3 and source all look basically the same.

[stanger89]

Make sure you have the AR mode in the nVidia decoders set correctly. I think Raw or Anamorphic is the right AR.

[sting7777]

can anyone verify what they are using? I think I have mine set to auto. Thanks Stanger - that may be the key!

[stanger89]

Actually, Ananamorphic isn't right, you want the top AR mode in the nVidia decoders to be selected (I think it's "Source"). I think the other's strip the AR flags from the stream.

BTW, what resolution are you running?

[sting7777]

1280x768 native res