Suggestion: Per-Tuner Aspect Ratio Settings

[derringer]

This is just a suggestion. I welcome any comments and also even suggestions about how this might be doable with the current incarnation of Sage.

I have one tuner that requires a certain Horizontal stretch and another that does not, and then an other that requires a small vertical stretch adjustment. I would like it if these settings were based on the tuner and not a global setting, so I can adjust each tuner for its particular relevant settings.

Any ideas on how to do this in the current implementation? If not, can it be something to look at implementing in the next beta? (either via GUI or .properties file would be fine.)

[nielm]

Auto Aspect Ratio Switcher might be able to do what you need -- switches between the 4 predefined ARs for specific shows/channels/capture devs as you require...

[derringer]

Thank you for that link.. that will work for the actual aspect ratio, which is another issue I was looking for.

This, in particular, however, is for doing Horizontal/Vertical Stretch and 'offset' on the detailed setup menu, to account for small issues with the picture on the border for my cable STB. It takes the setting as a 'global', and it really should be 'per tuner', as these adjustments are generally made by input device, not globally.

[nielm]

Those settings actually apply to the currently selected aspect ratio mode, not globally, so you can apply different settings for each AR mode.

I have a 16x9 mode for letterboxed shows that has a 133% zoom to fill my 16x9 display.

[derringer]

I had no idea... thank you nielm, for the information.

This actually begs the question... is there any way for it to zoom the picture when the broadcast is not marked as 'HD', so you could zoom 4x3 programming when it came on a channel which did 16x9 when it was an HD show?

[carlgar]

Originally Posted by nielm

Auto Aspect Ratio Switcher might be able to do what you need -- switches between the 4 predefined ARs for specific shows/channels/capture devs as you require...

Is there any reason you could not just always use the source AR and then change the aspect ratio settings? This would give infinite ARs instead of just 4. This is what I did before switching to your plugin.

[ke6guj]

Originally Posted by derringer

This actually begs the question... is there any way for it to zoom the picture when the broadcast is not marked as 'HD', so you could zoom 4x3 programming when it came on a channel which did 16x9 when it was an HD show?

SAge doesn't have any way, AFAIK, to scan the broadcast to see if it needs to be zoomed or not. However, the auto-aspect switcher should be able to take care of most of your needs if you can define the proper rules.

FOr instance, Conan O'brien is a 16x9 program. On the digital channel, it is displayed full-screen since it is 16x9 programming recorded in 16x9. On the analog channel, it is broadcast as 16x9 letterboxed in 4x3. On a 16x9 screen it ends up postage-stamped with letterboxing and pillarboxing.

So with the auto-switcher I set up rules to tell Sage what to do for Conan depending on what channel it was recorded on, and what tuner it was recorded on as well.

As long as all Conan shows are 16x9, and letterboxed if on the analog channel, then it works perfectly. Now, if soem Conan's were letterboxed 16x9 and others are 4x3 on the analog channel, then it wouldn't work. Some Modern Marvels shows are like this, so I can't set up a rule for it. But, I'd say that I am probably more than 90-95% accurate in my rule set.

[ke6guj]

Originally Posted by carlgar

Is there any reason you could not just always use the source AR and then change the aspect ratio settings? This would give infinite ARs instead of just 4. This is what I did before switching to your plugin.

How many ARs do you really need? I only use 2, Source and 16x9. Source mode is used for all HD and standard 4x3 content. I get pillarboxing with the 4x3, but its fine for me (I don't care for the distortion that horizontal stretching casues). For 16x9 mode, I have the it set to zoom 133% to get the letterboxed 16x9 content on the 4x3 channels to fit full-screen with no distortion.

DVDs and imported videos are run in Source mode as well. Yes there may be some letterboxing due to the larger than 16x9 ratios that they have, but it looks the best.

[carlgar]

I currently only need the 4 available, but I have only been using the program for a few days. I suspect we are doing the basically the same thing.

My main point is that there currently is an arbitary limit of 4 modes. I do not see any real reason why that limit is there. If the actual Horiz. stretch and vert. stretch values were stored and used them would be no arbitarty limit. I suspect the Aspect ratio setting may not have existed when the plug in was originally written. It may have been added when the originally values were not flexible enough.

[nielm]

The reason why I only used the 4 predefined modes was because I was lazy I also only need 2 modes (source+16x9).

It also means the builtin code in Sage for managing AR (toggle AR, and the 4 AR commands, the detailed setup page etc) does not need to be changed.

(yes the individual settings were there when I wrote it)