Request: Zoom feature in video playback and livetv.

[debennett2]

I hope I am not the only one who would like this but I see a lot of shows that are broadcast in SD but still like to appear widescreen on SD screens. This makes us with real widescreens have bars on ALL sides. A Zoom feature would fix this and fill up the screen.

Unless there is already a way to this that I am not aware of....

[GKusnick]

Originally Posted by debennett2

Unless there is already a way to this that I am not aware of....

There is. Under Detailed Setup > Multimedia > Aspect Ratio Settings you can configure the zoom factor for each of the four aspect ratio modes. So for instance I have my Fill mode set to 120% vertical zoom. By using this mode for letterboxed 4x3 content, I'm able to fill the screen with the image and crop off the letterbox bars at top and bottom.

For more info, find any post by Stanger and click the link in his sig.

[nielm]

also see my auto aspect ratio plugin that can change the AR for specific shows/channels/encoders...

[mc2wheels]

I will try the aspect ratio plugin, but I wish this was something easily toggled during playback. Sometimes shows are just letterboxed during the credits before or after the main part of the show -- especially movies that were converted to 4x3.

Also, with the HDHomerun, I have found that QAM channels are often letterboxed 4x3 (vertical bars on each side) while the broadcast is 16x9. I cannot use "Fill" on these through sage. I did not see this case in nielms plugin, but I will have to play with it to find out.

Again, I would prefer this be a normal feature in sage. With all the "beta"/RC candidates that really have bug fixes for the stable release, sometimes you have to be able to keep upgrading for performance issues. And sometimes this breaks the plugins, or there is a lag for plugin support. As a result, I now prefer vanilla sage rather than getting my wife used to a plugin (or stv) feature that becomes suddenly unavailable.

[debennett2]

Made a poll for this feature to be built into Sage. Can we move the discussion there? Thanks!

[jbarr]

Originally Posted by mc2wheels

I will try the aspect ratio plugin, but I wish this was something easily toggled during playback. Sometimes shows are just letterboxed during the credits before or after the main part of the show -- especially movies that were converted to 4x3.

Also, with the HDHomerun, I have found that QAM channels are often letterboxed 4x3 (vertical bars on each side) while the broadcast is 16x9. I cannot use "Fill" on these through sage. I did not see this case in nielms plugin, but I will have to play with it to find out.

Not sure if it would behelpful to you, but I use the Hauppauge 45-button remote (so YMMV) and I found that because I don't use Intelligent Recordings, and because I manually define Favorites, I have no need for either the "mark as don't like" or the "add to Favorites" buttons on the remote. (These are the two lower-left buttons on the remote.) So, I re-mapped them to be "delete" and "toggle aspect ratio" buttons respectively, and the aspect toggle button works VERY well for us.

Now, when we watch a show that is letterboxed, I just hit the button, cycling through the different aspect ratios until "full" comes up, and the letterboxed image nicely fills the screen properly. When we're done, I just cycle back to "Source". It's effortless and works every time. As far as HRHomeRun goes, as long as I leave it on "source" we never ahve to change anything because the content either fills the screen perfectly, or it is "pillerboxed".