Custom Aspects/Resolutions on HD Extender?

[ldavis]

Opus,

I understand what the source parameter does (I think), and basically for what everyone uses it for, it is a cropping tool. However, I do not understand blackstrip and cutstrip. From you FAQ, these define the amount that can be added or cut. What does can mean. From my tests, it does not force a black strip to be added or cut, so how does it make that decision?

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by Opus4

In that setting, only the height has been changed form the default value. So far, I've only seen the width & height being modified, but I'm wondering if anyone has found a use for the option setings on that line -- things like x, y, and the various options that could replace FrontEdgeToCenter or Relative.

Yeah, I realized that after I posted it

I'm of the opinion that only width & height are really useful to us, but I want to see if someone thinks otherwise.

- Andy

Oh, I think a bunch of it is useful, but I'm not convinced anything else works

Originally Posted by ldavis

I have played around with that some. Everything that I do results in an expanded image.

Stanger89,

Your AR attempt with the output set was the first thing I thought of. That would make too much sense to say, in effect, "Take the entire input frame and fit it into this smaller frame". But of course, the output parameter is ignored.

You could try setting blackstrip=0,1024, though I'm guessing that won't actually insert them, unless Sage determines that it "needs" them.

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by ldavis

I understand what the source parameter does (I think), and basically for what everyone uses it for, it is a cropping tool. However, I do not understand blackstrip and cutstrip. From you FAQ, these define the amount that can be added or cut. What does can mean. From my tests, it does not force a black strip to be added or cut, so how does it make that decision?

I think these settings are for the HD100's hardware decoder chip and those 2 settings are ones I still don't completely understand either. Their default values are 4096, meaning it can add black bars or cut out bars as much as it wants; setting it to 0 doesn't allow either to happen. And, yes, I know the next question: in real life, that means... ? I don't know how it figures out what black bars to add or what areas to cut out.

Originally Posted by stanger89

Oh, I think a bunch of it is useful, but I'm not convinced anything else works

For this AR mode property:

source=x,y,w,h,xpm,ypm,xm,ym,wm,hm

Each of those settings seemed to work the last time I tried them.

Are you saying that you know of a use for the source settings other than w & h? If so, I would like to hear about it because I can't think of anything useful. When I tried it, I was able to display non-centered portions of a video, but how useful is that?

- Andy

[stanger89]

Actaully y would be usefull for shifting the image up and down, eg for scope movies where you want to shift the image to make masking easier or to compensate for zooming.

[ldavis]

Taddeusz,

I just wanted thank you for your help and to give an update that may help others in the same boat as me with AVI files and incorrect PARs. I still have no solution to good aspect ratio control using extender but based on what you have told me and some research, I generated a simple .bat file to convert an AVI file to MKV wth the correct PAR. There may be some way to use wildcards to simplify converting all of my files but I have just generated large .bat files changing the file name with find and replace. Note that to use this you will need MP4Box.exe and mkvmerge.exe. Doing it this way only takes a relatively short amount of time to generate the required script for a large amount of files

One thing with regard to PAR calculation, if all you are doing is cropping the input video (and not changing the resolution) then there are only two PARs that will be calculated. The 32:27 you calculated will be for anamorphic video and ~9:10 (actually 89:100) will be correct for non-anamorphic video. That is true regardless of the display aspect ratio. I noticed this quite quickly when I started writing the .bat files and it turned out to be true in practice. In hindsight, it really is the only conclusion that makes sense. If you crop or don't crop you still have two PARs. So my conclusion if that complexity with PAR really comes from changing the resolution, not cropping.

[Taddeusz]

hmm... I came up with a par of 8:9 for 4:3 titles.

[ldavis]

Originally Posted by Taddeusz

hmm... I came up with a par of 8:9 for 4:3 titles.

Within any measure of visible accuracy, 89:100 (0.89) is the same as 8:9 (.88888888) but you are correct that the precise number is 8:9. It would be hard to detect that difference with a tape measure.

[stanger89]

Thought this might be of interest to the rest of the community. Now that I've got an HD PVR, I've got a new "issue" where I'm recording channels that are letterboxed, but broadcast in stretched 16:9, so I need to vertically stretch content, cropping off the errant bars.

To that end, I've been playing with the aspect ratio settings and I think I've been successfull:

advanced_aspect_ratio_extra_modes=Letterbox|source\=2048,2048,4096,3072,FrontEdgeToCenter,FrontEdgeToCenter,Relative,Relative,Relative,Relative|blackstrip\=0,0|cutstrip\=0,1024

FYI, the important attributes are blackstrip and cutstrip, blackstrip=0,0 tells the extender it can't add bars, and cutstrip=0,1024 tells the extender it can't cut in the horizontal, and can only cut 25% in the vertical, so effectively this, combined with the source settings crops the bars off.

I'm still trying to figure out if it's possible, or how to insert bars without cutting anything, eg to pillarbox errantly stretched broadcasts.

[Opus4]

Update: Check out the v6.4.4 beta regarding custom aspect ratio modes on the HD100 -- you can now interactively edit the custom AR modes and can choose which AR mode to use as the default. You don't have to edit the properties files manually for either of these settings any more.

During playback, simply use the Options command and select the Aspect Ratio Mode item to get to the improved AR selection dialog w/editing capability. Use the Right arrow while an AR mode is highlighted for additional options. You can't edit the built-in AR modes, but you can set them as the default AR mode. Custom AR modes have more options.

- Andy

[sleonard]

Is it possible to remove any of the built-in AR modes? I only use Source and Stanger89's Letterbox. I don't use Fill, ZoomA or ZoomB and I would prefer not to have to cycle thru all of those every time I want to change between Source and Letterbox.

S

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by sleonard

Is it possible to remove any of the built-in AR modes?

I don't think so -- you could send a request to SageTV, but I don't believe there is a way to remove a built-in AR mode. If someone corrects me, I'll add the info to the FAQ.

- Andy

[bialio]

Originally Posted by Opus4

Update: Check out the v6.4.4 beta regarding custom aspect ratio modes on the HD100 -- you can now interactively edit the custom AR modes and can choose which AR mode to use as the default. You don't have to edit the properties files manually for either of these settings any more.

Very cool stuff. I finally was able to create an anamorphic vertical stretch for my CIH setup with interactive goodness! Mainly being able see what the changes do helped with that.

As far as the default AR - that has never worked for me. I don't know why. But I just use nielm's autoaspect plugin to get the job done......

btl.

[bialio]

These are the three customs I have now.

Anamorphic removes the black bars above and below a 2.35:1 movie. Stretches everything out vertically. You only want this is you have a front projector and a lens to stretch everything back to the proper geometry.

Default is the nice one - for HD signals it just provides a tiny bit of overscan. For SD signals it does a partial zoom and a bit of a stretch / crop to fill the 16x9 screen, while keeping the geometry close to correct. This is so that you don't get burn in on TV's that are susceptible - like my 42" Plasma.

Letterbox is of course the same on stanger89 posted way back in the early days.

Anamorphic|blackstrip\=0,0|cutstrip\=0,0|nonlinearmode\=0,1|scalingmode\=LetterBox|source\=2048,2048,4096,3196,FrontEdgeToCenter,FrontEdgeToCenter,Relative,Relative,Relative,Relative;
Default|blackstrip\=0,0|cutstrip\=2048,0|nonlinearmode\=0,0|source\=2048,2048,3996,3996,FrontEdgeToCenter,FrontEdgeToCenter,Relative,Relative,Relative,Relative;
Letterbox|source\=2048,2048,4096,3072,FrontEdgeToCenter,FrontEdgeToCenter,Relative,Relative,Relative,Relative

[appelm]

Originally Posted by Opus4

Update: Check out the v6.4.4 beta regarding custom aspect ratio modes on the HD100 -- you can now interactively edit the custom AR modes and can choose which AR mode to use as the default. You don't have to edit the properties files manually for either of these settings any more.

During playback, simply use the Options command and select the Aspect Ratio Mode item to get to the improved AR selection dialog w/editing capability. Use the Right arrow while an AR mode is highlighted for additional options. You can't edit the built-in AR modes, but you can set them as the default AR mode. Custom AR modes have more options.

- Andy

I can't seem to get this to work. Nothing seems to have changed on my extender. I've installed the new beta on the server. I tried powering off the extender. But when I right arrow as described above, nothing happens.

[BobPhoenix]

Originally Posted by appelm

I can't seem to get this to work. Nothing seems to have changed on my extender. I've installed the new beta on the server. I tried powering off the extender. But when I right arrow as described above, nothing happens.

Are you sure you are using the new default STV on your extender? If I install any plugins and I get a SageTV3-5.xml as the STV for example and then upgrade the extenders are still using that STV and not the newly installed version. If that is the case then just select SageTV3.xml from the setup menu and try again.

[appelm]

ah.. I'm using SageMC. Is this going to require an upgrade of SageMC to be supported there? or perhaps I can setup the aspect ratios using the default STV and then switch back to SageMC?

[BobPhoenix]

Originally Posted by appelm

ah.. I'm using SageMC. Is this going to require an upgrade of SageMC to be supported there?

Yes

or perhaps I can setup the aspect ratios using the default STV and then switch back to SageMC?

I think that will work. I guess you will just have to try it.

[ldavis]

Originally Posted by BobPhoenix

YesI think that will work. I guess you will just have to try it.

That will work but bear in mind setting up the the ARs will not be like using the simple on the fly setting in SageMC. Though the new Sage beta allows you to set extender AR parameters on the fly, the parameters that you set are the same difficult to understand inputs that everyone on this thread is trying to understand. Seeing the changes in real time will help though.