Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[beef_yo]

Hi Guys,

MC11 is one of the few pieces of software I can justify paying for (and I have). It's great!

However after messing with ZoomPlayer, going back to MC11 was a bit of a step backwards. My TV is small, and so I hate to waste space when watching a widescreen DivX movie.

In Zoom Player I have the option to:
A) Zoom in and fill more of the screen, cutting the sides off slightly but in some movies this really isn't a problem.
B) 'Stretch' the movie in order to make it fit better - some negatives as well, but generally a great feature!

It seems the Aspect Ratio settings in MC11 are a bit lacking when it comes to these features.

Are there any plans to improve or expand on them? Are there any solutions that I'm missing?

Thanks for any input!

[Mr ChriZ]

Is your TV Widescreen?

[dlone]

Do you really like the picture stretched vertically so people all look like super skinnys models ?

[Doof]

I'd much rather have black bars than either of the two options you listed. While cutting off the sides on some movies might not be too bad, stretching the image to fit just looks horrible.

[JONCAT]

If you turn off the "Use Windows Media Player" engine you can then right click and choose aspect ratios, unless this is due to the fact that I'm running FFDSHOW or something. Try it, I noticed this the other day. Or why not install FFDSHOW and use that to define codecs and aspect ratios etc.

DC

[wombat66]

I'd much rather have black bars than either of the two options you listed. While cutting off the sides on some movies might not be too bad, stretching the image to fit just looks horrible.

I agree with Doof. For me cropping or stetching a movie to fit a screen is worse than black bars. It sounds like it's time for you to start shopping for a big widescreen display.

[dcwebman]

Anybody from the old school should try and get a chance to compare widescreen (letterbox with bars) vs. full screen (pan & scan) movies side by side. I did it years ago when I hated widescreen and compared Indiana Jones & the Last Crusade. It only took about 10 minutes to realize that I was missing a lot in the pan & scan movie and have never looked back. Widescreen is the only way to go.

[dlone]

Yeah - two noses talking to each other really does kill the moment :-)

[Yaobing]

Whether it is good or bad, MC12 will give you the options of "Stretch" and "Crop".

[Rob L]

it can only be good - at least for crop.

ZoomPlayer IS excellent and far better to use in this respect than MC.

I have LOTS of videos that are 4:3, but have borders (i.e. non-anamorphic widescreen). On a widescreen telly in MC that ends up being really annoying, because you then end up with borders at the top and the bottom and both sides! There's then no option in MC that can solve that, but in ZoomPlayer, you just zoom until the sides of the video reach the sides of the screen.

I've wanted this in MC for ages.

The other thing that would be great would be an EASY way to switch between them - this is actually the one thing that stops me using JRiver Media Center for watching video/DVDs and leaves me using Microsoft's Media Center, because that has all the options easily available on a couple of button presses (this is the main thing I do in JRiver MC regularly that I can't do without using a menu, which isn't easy from a 'standard' remote control).

[beef_yo]

Whether it is good or bad, MC12 will give you the options of "Stretch" and "Crop".

That's good to hear - to be honest I'd rather just pay the upgrade fee than shell out for a new widescreen TV 

Don't laugh to hard but my TV it just a 21 inch - an old one at that. In my tiny flat that's not much of a problem though. However you can imagine what happens to your eyes when watching a movie on a 21 inch with half a screen of black - people think you're on drugs just because you're squinting so much.

On a brighter note - I installed FFDShow and the aspect ratio options in MC11 now seem to work! For some reason they had no effect on some movies before installing FFDShow (I don't have the 'use Windows Media Player' ticket).

Has anyone else noticed this?

[Yaobing]

On a brighter note - I installed FFDShow and the aspect ratio options in MC11 now seem to work! For some reason they had no effect on some movies before installing FFDShow (I don't have the 'use Windows Media Player' ticket).

Has anyone else noticed this?

Here is my guess:

Whichever decoder you were using before forced the video renderer into "preserve aspect ratio" mode. This caused MC's attempt at aspect ratio to be ineffective.

This will be fixed in MC12 too.

[beef_yo]

Here is my guess:

Whichever decoder you were using before forced the video renderer into "preserve aspect ratio" mode. This caused the MC's attempt at aspect ratio ineffective.

This will be fixed in MC12 too.

I think you've hit it on the money!

Now if only I mention something about my Mac and you say 'Yep, there will be a Mac version of MC12 too' - it would start with a treble of the lip, and then a tear in the corner of the eye....

[krupted]

am i missing something here, because im running mc12 and it doesnt do any different then 11.   it still stretches the image tall wise.   it should just crop the sides but it doesnt.