HD & SD Decoder nightmare / Catch 22

[Diginerd]

Hi all,

I have HDTV running beautifully va HD Homerun, I also have a 2nd copy of sage server running as a network encoder with a couple of PVR250s connected to two Cable STBs via S-Video for everything that isn't clear channel QAM.

My problem is this (and others must have it it too!). I use the Nvidia decoders which rock for HDTV with minimal CPU use even on my lowly PNY 5200FX on the living room computer. The prolem is if I watch something that has been encoded via S-Video. It's in 4:3, and frequently 16:9 embedded in 4:3. The Nvidia decoders won't scale the video to full screen properly, whilst the sage decoder does a respectable job of stretching the picture to fill my 42" EDT (854x480) plasma.

The result is that all SD TV is in a small letterbox window (With black borders) in the middle of my screen, whilst the HDTV shows like 24 fill the screen and look beautiful.

If I manually swap the decoder back to Sage decoder, the SD stuff fills the screen (Albeit stretched, but wifey likes it that way), but now 24 and the like are letterboxed (Squashed vertically). The big problem with this is that the CPU melts trying to decode the HD Stream.

So, my question is:

Is there a way to use one decoder for .mpg files (SD) and the other for .ts (HDTV)?

I'm pretty sure sage itself doesn't support this directly (Please Frey!), but is there a work around I can do with an external player, and if I do, would the external player support Sage look & Feel (Pop up show info, progress bar etc) as well as COMskip support (Marked off timeline, honor .edl or .txt show analyzer files).

Help guys, I'm loosing WAF points faster than I care to think!

[GKusnick]

Originally Posted by Diginerd

The Nvidia decoders won't scale the video to full screen properly...

What exactly do you mean by this? I use the Nvidia decoder and I have no problem scaling letterboxed 16x9 to fill the screen. I do it using the SageTV aspect ratio controls, not the Nvidia decoder controls.

Or are you saying it scales, but you just don't like the resulting image quality? It looks a bit grainy on my system, but that's what you'd expect from a narrow slice of SD blown up to fill an HD screen.

[Diginerd]

Heyas,

Inside sage if something is playing and I tell it 16:9, Source, or 4:3 it will change image size but only slightly, it's still "Window Boxed".

Very puzzled on thsi one, I hought I hd prety good mastery of my Sage setup but this is eluding me!

[MeInMaui]

Originally Posted by Diginerd

Heyas,

Inside sage if something is playing and I tell it 16:9, Source, or 4:3 it will change image size but only slightly, it's still "Window Boxed".

Very puzzled on thsi one, I hought I hd prety good mastery of my Sage setup but this is eluding me!

On my system, I use the 'fill' aspect ratio for this purpose. In the aspect ratio settings, I set the horizontal and vertical size to ~133% give or take. When I get a program (SD) that is both letterboxed and pillarboxed, I choose the fill AR and it fills the screen. For everything else I typically use 'source'. HTH

Aloha,
Mike