Trouble figuring out correct aspect ratio settings

[popechild]

I know there are a few threads dealing with this, but I've read what I can find (including the Sage wiki on ARs) and can't seem to get it straight still.

(This is a little long, but I want to try to explain the problem properly)

My setup: 16x9 tv running 1280x720 (or close to it at least)
STV: SageMC
TV AR options: wide, normal, zoom (which is a zoom of "normal")

My desktop and the Sage UI display perfectly with TV set to "wide." All of my tv is OTA HD. I've actually been using it this way for about a month, using the 16x9 AR within Sage and have never noticed a problem on any of my shows (whether broadcast in full 16x9 hd or pillar-boxed - both show as they should) and dvds have been perfect as well (16x9 anamorphic fill the screen, 2.35x1 leave small top/bottom bars).

For the first time today though I tried watching a non-anamorphic, letterboxed dvd. As I expected, I was left with bars on all four sides. When this happens on my standalone dvd player, I just use the tv AR button to switch to "zoom." I realized for the first time tonight though that my htpc setup already uses the "wide" setting so "zoom" (which zooms "normal") gives a distorted ratio. My standalone dvd player input is set to "normal" on the tv. I still haven't figured out why the SA uses "normal" and everything works but the htpc needs to use "wide" for everything to work, but I'm not sure that's really important at this point.

What is important, is that since the htpc uses the "wide" setting on the tv, I can't "zoom" on the tv to fill the screen. After reading some around here, I saw that I could change the AR ratio within Sage to correct for this. So on the 16x9 setting in Sage, I changed zoom to 135% on verticle and the non-anamorphic, letterboxed dvd filled the screen perfectly.

BUT, that would mean I would need to use a different setting for all my other stuff (the vast majority) that was working fine at 100/100. I had gathered from what I read on here that the "Source" setting should work fine, but ironically, while that seems to work for the tv I tried, I tried two or three 16x9 anamorphic dvds and they actually show up as "windowed" now with the bars on all four sides! They *do* look okay using the "fill" setting within Sage, but for some reason I'm worried that whatever that is may not be giving me the exact right dimensions of the material in question - maybe I don't understand "fill" exactly.

So my situation is - if I change the "16x9" option within Sage so that it works properly for non-anamorphic letterboxed dvds, I can't use it for anything but those, and I can't use "Source" for some reason, and obviously "4x3" doesn't work, so the only other option is "Fill." Is it okay to use this setting for 99% of what I watch (everything but non-anamorphic letterboxed dvds?)

Otherwise, does anyone have any other ideas as to how I could set it up, or why "Source" might be "four-boxing" my anamorphic dvds, or any other advice that would help me figure out how I should set this thing up?

(For bonus points, if anybody can tell me why my standalone dvd player works properly with my tv set to "normal" and the htpc only works properly with my tv set to "wide" I'd be very happy as well. If I could figure this out, I might just be able to use the "zoom" setting on my tv for the rare, non-anamorphic letterboxed dvds and not have to worry about all the different AR options within Sage...)

Thanks!

[blade]

Your HTPC is using widescreen because you're running a 720p signal. The DVD is using normal because it's 480i/p. If you ran your HTPC at 480p resolutions (which I'm not suggesting) it would be able to use normal as well. HD content is 16*9. If the TV is receiving a signal at HD resolution it's going to use a 16*9 ratio. A 480i/p signal may be 4*3 or 16*9 so you have both options available.

Sounds like you just need to keep using 16*9 like before and use fill for 4*3 letterboxed. I think fill stretches horizontally to fill the screen where as 16*9 stretches to that aspect width. If you're using a 16*9 resolution fill should stretch horizontally the same as the 16*9 ratio does.

[popechild]

Thanks for your reply.

I'm actually using an upconverting standalone dvd player that has selectable 480i/p, 720p, and 1080i output. I'm using 720p.

I think I made a mistake earlier though in saying that my tv could use normal for the standalone all the time. Now that I think about it (since it's been a while since I consistently used the standalone player) I would still have the tv set to "wide" for anamorphic dvds. The difference is I have the option of setting it to "normal" for non-anamorphic dvds.

I'm thinking now that maybe the difference with the htpc is that even when a non-anamorphic (normal) dvd is being played, it's still being sent "within" (I'm sure that's the wrong word) the 720p windows resolution signal. So the tv still gets a widescreen signal even though the dvd is not widescreen. On the dvd player, it seems that if the dvd's not anamorphic widescreen, it sends a (4x3?) signal that the tv can read as "normal" non-widescreen.

So that may explain the difference between the htpc and the dvd player.

As far as your recommendation of using "fill" for the 4x3 letterboxed, it doesn't make a difference when I try it. "Fill" still leaves the bars on all four sides for the "windowed" look. I also couldn't seem to figure out how to adjust the 4x3 setting to make it work. So the only one I could figure out how to adjust the ratios properly on was 16x9.

Any other thoughts?

[IncredibleHat]

Do you have VMR9 enabled in SageTV for DVD playback?

That is supposed to help in determining the 'content settings' of aspect ratio. Thus auto-zooming and all that crazy junk.

For whatever it may be worth ... The way I have my HDTV setup is set to "Normal" aspect ratio for the DVI input (the HTPC). This makes the output of the HTPC a pixel to pixel perfection, no blurring of pixels etc. Using a "Zoom" or "Widescreen" aspect ratio with the HTPC always results in aweful results.

So, everything has to happen on your HTPC to get the image formatted into the resolution of the computer. Normally, you leave your resolution on the computer alone. Set and Forget. Mine is like 1360x768. I lose 6 whole pixels in the process (the HDTV is 1366x768, odd that... but oh well lol!).

Anyhow, for DVD playback, I have the decoders set as output of widescreen tv. Then, with VMR9 enabled, all my DVDs appear to display correctly while played. Some of my DVDs are 16x9, and fill perfectly. Some are 2.35:1 and show the top and bottom thin black bands (which is normal). And some are aweful 4x3 aspect (what they call FULL SCREEN pfft lol!). Anyhow, the 4x3 show up as pilar boxed. I don't have any DVDs that are 4x3 with letterboxing on them... thus requiring a zoom.

4x3 with letterboxing, is like what SciFi channels does all the time for me. I use the "16x9" aspect with those shows, as my 16x9 is setup as "134%x102%". I don't get HDOTA, or any HD for that matter... so all my 'TV' comes in as 4x3. Sometimes the stations add black bands, sometimes they don't. But all those black bands are 'fake' anyhow...

Not sure if any of this has helped you... I just thought I would write what I do, and maybe something will 'click'!

[stanger89]

HTPC+HDTV Aspect Ratio 101.

• Always use the "native" resolution of the display, if possible, this will provide the overall highest quality picture with least trouble. If you have an overscan problem, you can use the overscan correction found in most drivers to compensate for that.
• You (generally) always want to use "Native", "Normal", "Through", etc, on the display. Basically whatever setting does no modification to the source signal. HTPCs are basically an HD source, and TVs often make assumptions about HD sources that make their AR modes less usefull. Further, by using something other than "Native", you'll be affecting more than the video, but the OSD/UI/Desktop as well.
• The best, most effective place to tweak AR stuff, is in the HTPC, this will correctly handle video of different ARs while leaving your OSD/UI/Desktop correctly displayed.
• Sage has 4 Aspect ratio settings that I've found will cover probably 99.9% of contnent out there. For now, Sage uses the desktop resolution to determine the aspect ratio of your display, and bases all it's aspect ratio adjustments off that. Eg if you're running 1024x768, it will detect that as 4:3 and letterbox 16:9 content. If your resolution is 1280x720, it will detect that as 16:9 and pillarbox 4:3 content.
  • Source - Keys off 2 things (that I'm aware of) to determine the aspect ratio of the media, the resolution/format, and the anamorphic/aspect ratio flag. So for example, it will detect HD (16:9 format/resolution) as 16:9 and stretch it to a 16:9 display area.
  • 4x3 - Stretches all media to fill a 4:3 display area (based off your desktop resolution).
  • 16x9 - Stretches all media to fill a 16:9 display area (dito).
  • Fill - Stretches all media to fill your display or the Sage window.
  The later 3 completely disregard the source aspect ratio.
• On a 4:3 display, there's little reason to mess with anything as Source will properly display basically anything.
• On a 16:9 display, Source will work for probably 75-90% of content. The one exception is TV that is broadcast letterboxed. This is 16:9 content, broadcast as 4:3 and padded to fit. Sage doesn't know any better and will pillarbox it, and results in windowboxing (when combined with the letterboxing).
  • My solution to this is to tweak the 16x9 AR setting to about 125-133% Vertical zoom, this results in Sage "zooming" the picture to fill the screen, cutting off the letterbox bars.
• Non-square pixel displays - these are currently a bit tricky. My solution to this is to basically figure out the "factor" by which Sage is wrong, and adjust all AR settings by that ammount:
  • Compute the display aspect ratio, and desktop resolution aspect ratio. Say you're running 1024x768 on a 16:9 plasma (rather common). You have a 1.33:1 desktop/resolution aspect ratio and a 1.78:1 display aspect ratio.
  • Take the desktop/resolution aspect ratio and devide by the display aspect ratio:
    1.33/1.78 ~= 75%
  • Take all your horizontal zoom settings and mulitply them by that number (ie 100% becomes 75%).
  This also works well for "weird" situations like mine, 2.39:1 display aspect ratio and a 1.78:1 desktop/resolution AR.
• If you find you have to change a lot there are a couple options:
  • Configure a remote button to get you to the AR.
  • Use the Automatic Aspect Ratio import.

Like I said, that get's me through 99.9% of content I've run into.

[gplasky]

Sticky that post please.

Gerry

[blade]

Originally Posted by IncredibleHat

The way I have my HDTV setup is set to "Normal" aspect ratio for the DVI input (the HTPC). This makes the output of the HTPC a pixel to pixel perfection, no blurring of pixels etc. Using a "Zoom" or "Widescreen" aspect ratio with the HTPC always results in aweful results.

What you're calling "normal" is the 16*9 ratio. I may be mistaken, but I think popechild is calling 4*3 normal and 16*9 widescreen in reference to the TVs settings. I don't think the "widescreen" being referred to is any sort of stretching mode.

[blade]

Excellent post stanger89 and at the perfect time. I just finished recalibrating my display and am about to start tinkering with my aspect ratios and resolution.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by blade

What you're calling "normal" is the 16*9 ratio. I may be mistaken, but I think popechild is calling 4*3 normal and 16*9 widescreen in reference to the TVs settings. I don't think the "widescreen" being referred to is any sort of stretching mode.

Gota love the inconsistent, confusing terminology. I'm especially fond of the "wide" mode on some TVs. What exactly does "wide" mean?

[IncredibleHat]

I hear you there!

It all started with the blastid new widescreen TVs lol...

[popechild]

Originally Posted by IncredibleHat

Do you have VMR9 enabled in SageTV for DVD playback?

Not sure if any of this has helped you... I just thought I would write what I do, and maybe something will 'click'!

No VMR9 (hardware can't handle the HD with it), but somewhere along the way reading your post something did "click."

I hadn't messed around at all with the AR settings within the Nvidia PureVideo decoder. When I looked at that, it was set to "content default". The other options were "Letterbox" "Pan and Scan" and "Anamorphic/ Raw Aspect." I changed it to anamorphic and presto - perfect!

Now with my tv set to "wide" (which just means it's expecting 16x9 material - it's not stretching anything) all my HD and anamorphic 16x9 dvds fill the screen perfectly (as before), my 4x3 dvds are pillarboxed (as before), but now my "letterboxed 4x3" dvds are stretched to fill the screen horizontally (unnaturally). This is good! Because that means I can change the tv to "normal" to show it with bars on all four sides, and "zoom" to fill the screen with the correct ratio - just like on my standalone player. Just what I was hoping for!

All this is now using the "16x9" setting within Sage with no adjustments on the AR %s. I guess I could play with it now to try to get one of the Sage settings to stretch the "four bar" dvds properly and make the AR switch within Sage if I wanted to, but it's just as easy for me to leave Sage alone and hit the AR button for the tv (it's on the same universal remote, so no biggie.)

Score one for the good guys!

[feilerd]

Stanger,

I just started another thread that I think you might be able to provide some input on: http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=22983

Any thoughts?

[Belgrath]

How about the settings of your digital box in general. Do you set that to pass-thru mode?

For instance my SA4250HD box as 4 modes.
- Fixed
- Upconvert1
- Upconvert2
- Passthru

Normally I have this set to Passthru so that there's no conversion going on. Next I pass these feeds to my HDPVR box, and then onto Sage.

Belg

[Belgrath]

Originally Posted by Belgrath

How about the settings of your digital box in general. Do you set that to pass-thru mode?

For instance my SA4250HD box as 4 modes.
- Fixed
- Upconvert1
- Upconvert2
- Passthru

Normally I have this set to Passthru so that there's no conversion going on. Next I pass these feeds to my HDPVR box, and then onto Sage.

Belg

I think I answered my own question again
http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/show...t=77789&page=8
http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/showthread.php?t=17719

Some handy links that I dug up