STV Import: Display Aspect Ratio Toggle

[GKusnick]

This STVI provides automatic display aspect ratio switching for people with multiple monitors that have different aspect ratios (for instance, one 4x3 and one 16x10 widescreen).

For the download link and setup instructions, click here.

[reggie14]

Thanks! This is a nice little utility. I don't want to seem ungrateful, but I have a couple comments.

My understanding is that there isn't a keyboard shortcut for changing the display aspect ratio. There's one for changing the aspect ratio mode, but not the display aspect ratio. If that's true, how difficult would it be to add such a shortcut?

I move the Sage window between display a lot when video is playing. It sort of inconvenient to have to go back to the Sage menu. Could you add the toggle somewhere on the video window? Perhaps you could place the circle in one of the corners. I would find less use for this if there is a keyboard shortcut that toggles between different display ARs.

Of course, what I would love the most is if someone made a tool which detected when the Sage window moved to a different monitor and automatically changed the display AR. I imagine that would be significantly harder to develop.

In any case, thanks again for this tool. I'm using it already.

[GKusnick]

OK, I figured out how to do the automatic switching and have uploaded a new version of the STVI. (I also renamed it from DARToggle to DARSwitcher since that better describes what it does now.) See the download page for details.

The manual switching mode is still there as an option if you want to enable it (but you probably won't). I haven't done anything with keyboard shortcuts or putting an icon in the OSD screen since that seemed a lot less important now.

[reggie14]

That is awesome! It works great. Thank you for writing this.

[archcommus]

This does not seem to work with Sage 6.4.8. I sent you a PM.

[reggie14]

archcommus-

Are you using DARToggle or DARSwitcher?

Thanks for warning me. I might hold off on upgrading to Sage v6.4 for now.

[archcommus]

Originally Posted by reggie14

archcommus-

Are you using DARToggle or DARSwitcher?

Thanks for warning me. I might hold off on upgrading to Sage v6.4 for now.

Pretty sure it was DARSwitcher, I believe that's the only one available now. Unless I'm doing something wrong. I just loaded it up, dragged to primary, clicked 16x10, dragged to secondary, clicked 5x4, no change when dragging between monitors. Tried closing and reopening, no change. Added the "manual" line, don't see anything different. Ideas?

[GKusnick]

I'll take a look at it when I get a chance. Not sure how soon that will be as I'm in the middle of repainting my student's apartment and have to get that done before school starts next week.

[Opus4]

This is one of the imports I used to test the STVI Plugin Manager for v6.4 & it still switches the display aspect ratio when I move it from screen to screen.

- Andy

[archcommus]

Thanks guys. I'm really not sure what I'm doing wrong then. I'm following the directions exactly as listed on the download page with Sage 6.4.8 on Vista x64 SP1.

[reggie14]

Thanks for chiming in, Andy. I'll update Sage one of these days and try it out myself.

archcommus-
I think I've actually ran into the problems doing the initial setup. Try setting the AR one one display, back out to the main setup menu, move the screen to the second display, and then go back to the screen that let's you choose the AR.

[archcommus]

Thanks, reggie. I went to try that, and it was suddenly telling me it couldn't read the plug-in file at all (when I tried to rebuild). Previously I was putting the files in the "virtual store" Program Files in Vista, since that's where all files that Sage tries to write to Program Files are redirected to anyway. Before I wasn't getting this read error, and using that virtual store should work the same totally transparently as the regular Program Files. But, since I was getting this read error and the plug-in wasn't working anyway I moved it to the real Program Files. Reloaded it, then tried what you mentioned, and now it works. Again, I don't know why I didn't get the read error the first few times, and I'm not sure if using the virtual store actually creates a problem (it shouldn't, this is where the properties file is kept after all), but either way, it works now. Thanks for the help everyone! Great plug-in.

[GKusnick]

It turns out there was a compatibility issue with 6.4 that prevented the manual switch icon from being displayed properly. I've uploaded a new build of the STVI that fixes this; be aware however that this new version requires SageTV V6.4.