Display 16:9 video as 4:3

[pjwerdna]

Is it possible to get the HD extender to display a video it thinks is 16:9 in 4:3 format (pillar boxed)?

I've lots of old recordings with previous version of sage that didnt capture the aspect ratio properly. Dont know if the capture was wrong or it was lost when Sage compressed them.

Ive thought about getting the file itself changed, but I dont know which files they are until I play them and changing the aspect ratio take 20 minutes or so.

[pjwerdna]

Erm!

So is this a No or a Dont Know?

[evilpenguin]

Do a search for "STX-100 custom aspect ratio" and you should find some threads on the topic.

[BFisher]

can't you just hit the aspect button on the remote? Cycles through the various pre-built aspects. Works fine for me...

I guess if one of those doesn't work, then you'd need to customize one.

[Taddeusz]

Yea, I still have a 4:3 tube TV hooked to my HD100. When I view pillarboxed HD content I just hit the aspect ratio button twice and it displays the video as it should. Looks great! And I must say that resized pillarboxed SD actually looks sharper than actual SD video.

It annoys me that channels like TBS HD not only resize 4:3 to fit 16:9 but also use that annoying nonlinear technique where the image gradually gets more stretched as you get to the left and right edges of the screen. There's not a dang thing you can do to make that look normal on a 4:3 TV.

[pjwerdna]

Ive tried searching.

MY problem is that the mpeg/avi is 4:3 but marked in Sage as 16:9 and plays back on my 16:9 tv in 16:9.

Im using a DVI connection so I cant tell the TV to display the picture in 4:3.

I can find many mentions of expanding a picture and cutting bits off, but have yet to find a mention of shrinking it. I suspect it requires the use of the output parameter which isnt supported.

I tried several aspect ratio configs I found, but none did what I need. (I did find one panoramic aspect which will be useful for other recordings) Also just upgraded to the latest Beta and tried the interactive configuration, again I can cut bits off or expand the picture but not shrink it.

FYI None of the builtin aspect ratios actually do anything useful for me. The TV I have has similar ones, Normal (source), full, Zoom 1 (Zoom A) and Zoom 2 (Zoom B). Only Normal and Full are useful. The two Zooms just loose differant bits of the picture off the top.

[Opus4]

You'll proabbly need to find a tool to edit the to change its AR info. This tool was mentioned to me as a possibility, but others may do the job

http://www.videohelp.com/tools/DVDPatcher

- Andy

[pjwerdna]

I dont know which recording are wrong until theyre watched. Then fixing them takes 20 minutes, or more, plus a file copy back to the original location.

Might just stop using the HD100 instead for the time being. or even better, work out how to connect both the server and the HD100 so I can switch to the server when necessary.

Do you know if this situation may change? i.e. is it possible that shrinking the picture will be available a some point? (There is an output parameter after all)