Is this behavior abnormal?

[dinki]

The Problem:

I recently purchased an HD Theatre and am wanting to create a custom aspect ratio similar to the way it can be done on the PC. I am displaying to a SD tv and part of the screen is being clipped by the tv.

I would like to reduce the display to somewhere around 90%-95% of what is being displayed now.

SageTV Support's answer:

One of the developers said you don't get the blackstrips because that's not
how it works. The HD200 does not use the same aspect ratio code as the PC
does because the hardware is very different. It's not possible to reduce the
output area like you want when you use the advanced aspect ratio modes. The
ONLY way to reduce the video output area is to shrink the size of the
component using the SageTV Studio.

It's quite easy to do

1) Open studio with Ctrl+Shift+F12 on the server.
2) Go to Edit->Find and search for 'Video BG' (no quotes)
3) Right click on it and select Properties
4) Change the size/position to what you want and then save the STV.

If you want to preserve it long term over upgrades; you just need to save it
as a new filename; then select Tools->STV UID File Difference (diff it
against the original SageTV3.xml); then Generate STVI. Then you can import
that STVI into the original SageTV STV and whenever you upgrade it will
automatically apply your change.

The odd behavior:

I am able to create a new STV using the default V7 STV that is smaller but it is far from centered. If I use Fixed Width 50 Fixed Height 50, I get a small video centered on the screen. However, if I use Fixed Width 98 Fixed Height 98, I get a larger video but a large black bar on the left side of the screen and on the top.

Am I going about this the wrong way?

As a side note, I tried this using SageMC a year or so ago and was able to get it to behave properly and was using that version up until I switched to Sage v7.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

[GKusnick]

In both SageTV3.xml and SageTV7.xml, the Video BG widget is anchored to the top left corner of the screen. If you want it centered, adjust the anchor values as well as the size.

Note that these widget properties are all explained in the Studio manual, which also contains some good walkthrough tutorials. See the stickies at the top of the forum for links.

[dinki]

Originally Posted by GKusnick

In both SageTV3.xml and SageTV7.xml, the Video BG widget is anchored to the top left corner of the screen. If you want it centered, adjust the anchor values as well as the size.

Note that these widget properties are all explained in the Studio manual, which also contains some good walkthrough tutorials. See the stickies at the top of the forum for links.

Thanks for the info. I suppose it is apparent that I just tried 'hacking' it to make it work. Will look at the docs to go about things the right way. Thanks for the push in the right direction.

[dinki]

Wow! I've spent some time looking at the docs and my head is spinning.

Can I some kind person to give me a little bit of instruction as I really am not looking at using studio beyond this task. I really don't understand what values I need to enter into the either of the anchor xy boxes. If someone could just tell me what values (or range of values) I can put in these boxes I might be able to get what I'm trying to do accomplished.

I'm not trying to be lazy, but it's really overwhelming in trying to find what I need in all that information. Thanks.

[GKusnick]

It's not actually that complicated for what you're trying to do. Just arrange the Studio window and the SageTV UI side by side, start a video playing, grab the sliders on the widget property dialog, and move them around to see what happens. It should become obvious fairly quickly what the anchor properties do and what values are reasonable. You can always Cancel or Revert any changes, so there's really not a lot of damage you can do by experimentation.

[dinki]

Whoa, I didn't realize it did things in realtime. I was making changes then saving then reloading the STV. This will even work on an HD200 extender? Too late for me to start messing with it tonight but will definitely give it a whirl tomorrow. Thanks again.

[GKusnick]

Originally Posted by dinki

This will even work on an HD200 extender?

You won't get a Studio window on your extender screen; if it works at all (I haven't tried it) the window will come up on the server.

The best platform for serious Studio work is SageTV Client, where you can test changes locally without perturbing your production server.