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[rvonder]

I have a movie file in 720p, x.264 format with DTS-ES 6-channel audio. It has a 2.39:1 aspect ratio, so has black bars on the top and bottom when viewed on a regular 16:9 (1.78:1) HDTV.

My 2012 Panasonic Viera VT50 plasma TV has built-in DLNA. Unfortunately, it's pretty fussy about video file formats, and I often get the dreaded "unsupported format" when trying to access files directly. So I'm trying instead to access video via MC 25's DLNA server, relying on MC to transcode unsupported formats.

If I access the above file directly from the TV (i.e., not through MC), the video displays perfectly in the correct 2.39 aspect ratio, with black bars above and below. But there's no sound, because the TV can't handle files with 6-channel DTS audio.

I have MC's media server audio configured to convert unsupported formats, and video to remain in the original format (i.e., no conversion). I've also turned off the options having to do with aspect ratio conversion. When I view this video via MC, the transcoded audio is fine. But for some reason, MC is stretching the video vertically to fit the 16:9 screen by eliminating the black bars - which of course makes people look very tall and thin.

Is there a way to configure MC's DLNA Server to convert the unsupported audio, but actually pass the video unchanged? It looks great on the PC in the MC viewer; the vertical stretching only occurs through DLNA. And I can't fix it by changing the aspect ratio on the TV itself, because the stretching occurs before the video reaches the TV. (All I can do on the TV is shrink the entire image proportionally, leaving black bars on all four sides.)

My apologies if this is something simple, but I couldn't find an answer searching the wiki and/or the forums, and I've spent hours trying every combination of settings within MC to no avail. Many thanks!

[Hendrik]

Is there a way to configure MC's DLNA Server to convert the unsupported audio, but actually pass the video unchanged?

Unfortunately, thats not a mode we currently support. Its either entirely untouched, or entirely converted. Its planned for the future, but its not alone on that list, unfortunately.

Which format are you transcoding to that your TV is not seeing the proper aspect ratio? We're not even encoding anamorphic, which means it really doesn't have to do anything but show pixels 1:1.
I would recommend one of the H264-TS AutoFPS options, or if those are problematic for some reason, MPEG-2 TS AutoFPS as a fallback (pick whichever resolution you like, higher resolutions require more power to process)

For H264, there is also the hardware option here:
https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php/topic,120104.0.html

The only format that might end up with aspect ratio problems that I know of is one of the DVD formats.