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[Mastiff]

Today I bought two widescreen (16:10, like all computer widescreen monitor - I have no idea why they don't make 'em 16x9) 19" monitors to use as a kitchen and bedroom TV (and it has taken me two years to make mrs. Mastiff accept a computer in the living room - Queen's "We Are the Champions" comes to mind...), and I have a problem: The aspect ratio is all wrong in TV mode. When I set it to 16x9, it has large black bars below and above, the way it rightfully should with a regular 4:3 monitor. But how do I make it use the full heigth (well, almost - 16:10 means that half an inch on the bottom will be a black bar) on these monitors?

[raym]

I've wondered this myself.

The other observation i've made regarding Theater View and widescreen monitors is that the collapsing menus get cut off. For instance:-

I'm using LARGE fonts!!

1. Play some music
2. Goto playing now
3. Attempt to select a vizualization such as Controls > Vizualisations > Collage
4. The next sub menu gets "cut-off" as it wraps to the left of the screen.

[BartMan01]

Have you tried: right click > aspect ratios > crop?

If the file is encoded as a non-anamorphic 4:3 video this will cause it to fill the screen horizontally and crop vertically.

Given that there is no standard way people encode their videos, I find I have to mess with aspect ratio settings to get some videos to look 'right'.

[Mastiff]

Eh...what file? Please re-read the subject of the thread...

[BartMan01]

Eh...what file? Please re-read the subject of the thread...

Well, I assumed you were talking about CONTENT, not Theater View itself.  I have a 24" 16:10 monitor and without changing any of the default settings Theater View fills my full screen - no black bars.  When I drag it over to my 2nd monitor (4:3), it also fills the full screen (no black bars).  Since you stated: 'Like it rightfully should', I assumed you were talking about content because Theater View itself has never had black bars for me.

[ThoBar]

As Bartman suggests, the problem is normally not with MC, but with the content (file, tv ....) you are trying to play, or with your hardware setup. So long as you have the monitor running at a 16:10 widescreen resolution and you try to play a movie/TV with a correct aspect-ratio tag in the file/broadcast (and MC is set to use source aspect ratio under display settings) it should appear correctly.

** The only way I know to access the aspect ratio setting is either via Theater View, or by right clicking on a playing video image ** (I cant see it under options...)

If you are trying to play TV, does your card driver have a setting for the output aspect-ratio? This may be confusing MC if it is set incorrectly. Check your default aspect ratio settings in MC. I generally find "Use Source Aspect..." is correct.

(I know this isnt your issue, but may be useful info)
For general movie file viewing:
Be sure that the movie you are playing has the correct aspect-ratio identifier (a few dont, and this can cause MC to disply it incorrectly, but is easily overridden in the display settings).

Also be sure that the movie is 16:9 and not 2.85:1 (or any of the super-widescreen ratios), this will still cause you to get large black bars top and bottom, although this is correct behaviour.

Basically if the movie doesnt look stretched in either direction, its displaying as it should.

[Mastiff]

Now I understand why you're not answering my question, I asked it ambiguously! Wen I say MC TV I'm not talking about the specialiced MC abbreviation (which I didn't even know excisted - I would have said "Theater View" if I meant that), I'm talking about the general TeleVision! OK, anybody got anything to say about that?

Oh, about the movie aspect ratios, I know all about the different ratios, you should have seen all the trouble I have had in my home theater to make all types mask correctly with my motorized screen!  As for the card it's an ATI Radeon 9800 AIW, and it has no settings outside of MMC for aspect ratio. And I hate MMC! 

[Alex B]

Today I bought two widescreen (16:10, like all computer widescreen monitor - I have no idea why they don't make 'em 16x9) 19" monitors to use as a kitchen and bedroom TV (and it has taken me two years to make mrs. Mastiff accept a computer in the living room - Queen's "We Are the Champions" comes to mind...), and I have a problem: The aspect ratio is all wrong in TV mode. When I set it to 16x9, it has large black bars below and above, the way it rightfully should with a regular 4:3 monitor. But how do I make it use the full heigth (well, almost - 16:10 means that half an inch on the bottom will be a black bar) on these monitors?

Oh, about the movie aspect ratios, I know all about the different ratios, you should have seen all the trouble I have had in my home theater to make all types mask correctly with my motorized screen!  As for the card it's an ATI Radeon 9800 AIW, and it has no settings outside of MMC for aspect ratio. And I hate MMC! 

I have only an old analog TV card (Hercules Smart TV Nicam Stereo) that can show only standard 4:3 TV broadcasts. I tried it with the 1280x720 resolution. The aspect ratio was automatically correct and could not be adjusted. The usual controls (mouse wheel zoom, + & - buttons zoom and mouse drag position adjustment) were all available and it was easy to enlarge the picture so that the broadcasted black borders (part of the actual picture) were cropped.

[Mastiff]

Aha! That may work, thanks! I don't have any mice or other rodents (or keyboards for that matter) on the computer, I'm running strictly Girder/remote control. But is that able to zoom in height only? The width is OK, it's the height that works. ATI MMC can do widescreen, but that program is a total pest!

[Yaobing]

I do not have a wide screen hooked up to my computer, so I can not test the situation. However, in general you should select "Source Aspect Ratio" in MC.

If the source (your TV broadcast) is 16x9, but your display is 16x10, there will be black bars on top and bottom. The only ways I would think to get rid of the bars are "Crop" and "Stretch" (or zoom as suggested by Alex). In addition you can use "Crop Edges" option for MC TV, which is designed to get rid of the noises at the edges of the source video.

[Alex B]

I have selected "Aspect Ratio: Source" and "Miscellaneus: Crop Edges" in MC's TV options.

This is how it works on my PC:


A standard 4:3 TV broadcast and the output of my analog TV turner (red lines).
Blue area is a 16:9 content inside the TV broadcast.


My display driver is set to 1280x720 DVI output.
(ATI Radeon 9600 & rather old Catalyst driver v. 8.082-041130a-019577)


By default my TV tuner & MC12 combination shows this. The aspect ratio is correct but a widescreen movie has black top & bottom bars (which are already present in the analog broadcast signal i.e the black bars are part of the actual picture)


After using MC's zoom feature. (mouse wheel or + key)

[Mastiff]

Thanks! Using a mouse I managed to zoom to something a lot more pleasing, but the aspect ratio is still wrong. I need to set the custom aspect ratio to 16:10 and try to get it to stick, it didn't the first time I tried. I'll try again tomorrow. One thing I noticed was that the image was a hell of a lot better than with ATI's crappy MMC! I'm talking so much better that my wife said "wow", something she rarely says. The only problem was that when I zoomed too much the image got jerky. I gotta see if it's possible to change to overlay instead of VMR9, which is what the renderer is set to now. If I can't find it, I'll be back here tomorrow morning...

[Mastiff]

I'm baaaaaack!
OK, first of all I have a weird problem here. When I set the aspect ratio to 16:10 it actually gives me the correct AR in relation to the monitor...but it's so much smaller than it should be!!! It looks like the second image from the bottom in Alex' post. And if I try to zoom it says 200 % at once. Zooming it bigger will give me serious stuttering, and it simply can't be zoomed out to the edges of the screen, it starts cropping (and I have deselected cropping) before it reaches the edges. Anybody know why this happens?

And I couldn't find anywhere to set TV display to overlay. I know it's VMR9 now because I can see the image if I log into the computer running MC with VNC, and if you do that on something that's overlay, you'll only see black where the TV picture should be.

Edit: Seems like I'm out of luck on the overlay issue, found a few older posts that says that TV probably only supports VMR9 (or on earlier versions VFW). But if I could solve the stuttering and strangeness in full screen I would be OK with VMR9.

[Yaobing]

It looks like the second image from the bottom in Alex' post.

Not sure. Normally video image like that is an indication that the broadcaster's signal does not have the same aspect ratio as the contents. For example you are actually getting 4:3 from the TV station which is playing a 16:9 movie.

And I couldn't find anywhere to set TV display to overlay. I know it's VMR9 now because I can see the image if I log into the computer running MC with VNC, and if you do that on something that's overlay, you'll only see black where the TV picture should be.

Edit: Seems like I'm out of luck on the overlay issue, found a few older posts that says that TV probably only supports VMR9 (or on earlier versions VFW). But if I could solve the stuttering and strangeness in full screen I would be OK with VMR9.

The choice of video renderer depends on what TV device you have. For digital TV, and Hauppauge WinTV PVR series, VMR9 is used. For all other devices Windows default renderer is used (which is VMR7 on XP, legacy renderer on all earlier OS).

[Mastiff]

Thanks! So it's VMR7! I knew it was VMR, but I assumed VMR9. OK, anyway, that's not something you're gonna change because I say it, right?

Anyway, the broadcaster's signal should now be 16:9 on all programs, they changed that a few months ago. It makes no difference what channel I tune to, 4:3 or 16:9, they all behave like this. All though it's of course possible that all my channels that are now 16:9 just moved the logo and kept sending the signal out 4:3 with black bars, even though I seriously doubt it. But even if they are, shouldn't it be possible to force the display size in MC, so I can zoom into the correct image, without stuttering problems and cropping? If the area I want to watch is 16:9, I should be able to force MC to show it 16:9 (or even 16:10, if I feel like looking at it a bit out of AR and loose the remaining black bar). Or is there something in the system that stops me from doing this? Also why does it show that I'm on 200 % zoom when I try to go full screen? Is that because the natural size of the PAL signal is 625 lines?

I need to get this working correctly, or my wife will start to hint at getting the old 4:3 LCD monitor back in the kitchen and the old 4:3 TV back in the bedroom. Which may (GASP!) drive me to XP MCE... (Did that sound threatening and ominous enough?)

[Mastiff]

Curiouser and curiouser! I just tried to update the drivers to the latest Radeon drives, which changes the long list of video devices (TV Tuner, Rage Theater Audio/Video and so on) Into one single unit called a T200. Suddenly the image is totally crappy! It looks like a thumbnail that's blown up to cover an XGA monitor! The effect is identical on my two systems that has 9800 SE AIW's and the new widescreen LCD monitors. I will do some more driver experimenting, but do you have any idea why this is happening? I have to go all the way down to what's considered 100 % zoom in MC (which is a small area on the middle of the screen) before it shows correctly.

Also I tried to set my digital sattellite box to native 16:9 instead of 4:3, but that didn't change anything at all.

Finally I measured the image that's shown on the screen with MC set to 16:9. It was 40 centimeters wide and 20 centimeters high. That is a relationship at 2. Most (if not all) widescreen computer monitors are 16:10, which is 1.6. 16:9 is 1.66666667. So the aspect ratio is all wrong on a widescreen monitor. Shouldn't that be possible to get right by adjusting, or is widescreen monitors and TV actually a new problem?

[Yaobing]

TV Options -> Advanced Properties -> Preview Pin

Try different resolution (display size), using the largest that will work.

[Yaobing]

Finally I measured the image that's shown on the screen with MC set to 16:9. It was 40 centimeters wide and 20 centimeters high. That is a relationship at 2. Most (if not all) widescreen computer monitors are 16:10, which is 1.6. 16:9 is 1.66666667. So the aspect ratio is all wrong on a widescreen monitor. Shouldn't that be possible to get right by adjusting, or is widescreen monitors and TV actually a new problem?

I still am not sure why. I did an experiment with my 4:3 monitor.

I set its resolution to 1280 x 720. Everything appear to be tall as expected. The 4x3 TV show also appear to be tall. Now I change aspect ratio in TV to 16 x 9. Now the 4x3 TV show appear correctly on the screen. This indicates that the AR setting is working properly.

[Mastiff]

There's nothing bigger than 720x576, and no matter what I set it to, it goes straight back to that setting. And all I know is that the native resolution of this LCD monitor is 1400x900, and that's 10:16. But here's something funky: When I change the aspect ratio from 4:3 to 16:9 and even try a custom AR at 16:10, nothing actually changes. Is there something overriding me here?

[Alex B]

I can't comment the ATI tuner & driver issues since I only have a Brooktree chip based tuner card, but...


Aren't the analog broadcasts always 4:3? Otherwise old 4:3 TVs would show wrong aspect ratio.

That's why my "screenshot" #3 is what you should automatically get from ATI's analog tuner without any customized settings (when the Aspect Ratio option is set to Source and MC's display is maximized).

This should be independent from the display resolution setting you have selected in the ATI display driver options. Naturally, you should run an LCD display at native resolution if available in the options.

As far as I know, only digital tuners can receive and display real 16:9 wide screen content without cropping the picture.

The situation should be different if you can feed native 16:9 signal to ATI's S-Video input from your digital tuner box. Then you should handle it like any other anamorphic signal instead of zooming the "letter-box".

[Mastiff]

That's very possible, I was thinking about how older TV's, that doesn't have the ability to set widescreen or fullscreen input, was coping. Still, and I'm gonna go out on a limb here, mentioning another application, Zoom Player is able to get this right when I play media in it. I use three instances of that in the car (because I need three screens with totally independent video playback) and I have set the two back screens, that are 16:10 monitors but needs a resolution of 800x600 to work well with text material. There I have set a special aspect ratio (can't remember exactly) that accounts for this difference and make all movies show in the correct AR. Shouldn't MC's AR controls work in the same way?

[BartMan01]

Didn't realize you were talking about TV as in analog OTA or cable content instead of Theater View.  Usually when people are using MC in a home entertainment environment, they use Theater View as their interface.  It is dangerous these days to use 'television' in reference to anything other than the physical set itself, since the content distribution (cable, satellite, OTA, files from a PC, DVD's) is more important to know when troubleshooting issues.

Aren't the analog broadcasts always 4:3?

Yes, they are.  This is why you end up with the 'black bars all around' issue with 'widescreen' content on a standard def channel.  You get the black bars at the top and bottom that are part of the actual video signal, and the black bars on the side that are put there by the display device to maintain the original aspect ration of the content.

[Yaobing]

There's nothing bigger than 720x576, and no matter what I set it to, it goes straight back to that setting.

That should be large enough. Analog TV tuners would not be able to do anything better.

[Mastiff]

I found that one!!!! Turned out that it needed 704x576. So no more problems with that one. I'm still fighting with the AR, but at least I'm making good progress. Also, going back to Catalyst 5.1 I have overlay instead of VMR, but it doesn't help my AR problems. I'm gonna get back to a newer driver and try out the looks with the correct preview size.

[Yaobing]

I think Alex is right about analog TV ratio.

In MC, setting AR means deciding the shape of the area where you want the source video displayed. If the broadcaster broadcast a 16:9 movie, black bars are added to the top and bottom by the broadcaster. Cropping (or zooming) is the only way to get rid of such bars.

Since the movie is 16:9, but your monitor is 16:10, you will always have to choose between losing some area on the left and right, or leaving some bars on top and bottom.

So instead of setting the AR to 16:10, you may want to try setting is to something slightly taller than 4:3 (12 x 10 maybe), and then zoom in.

[Mastiff]

Right! Logicall, really! Thanks, I will try that. Weird thing, though: I don't have the preview pin setting in the advanced properties with all ATI drivers. Do you know why? And can I set that somewhere else?

[Yaobing]

Such property pages are exposed by the driver. I remember all my ATI AIW devices had such pages. Maybe it is not present in newer drivers?

[Mastiff]

You're right. They seem to be missing in drivers that shows the capture driver as one T200 device instead of the long list.

Edit: I'm now up to 20:17, and I get closer by every attempt. But is there some way to set that aspect ratio either per channel or by a command (anything that Girder can send, I can use)? Some channels, like Disney Channel, shows mostly old 4:3 stuff.

[Mastiff]

I found another problem: The picture gets cropped even though it's not outside the LCD monitor when I zoom in, sometimes on the sides but more often on the top and bottom, so it's difficult to get the correct AR. Why does that happen when I haven't set it to crop in the settings?

Edit: I have now also tried on another Radeon AIW 7200 with a 16:10 widescreen CRT computer monitor (Sun - great monitor, must have cost a fortune when that was new! I use it as a TV in the home gym.), and I'm now sure: It's impossible to get the picture to fill enough both in height and width to go true 16:9 on a 16:10 monitor. No matter what AR I key in and how much I zoom, I have black bars at the top and bottom, black bars that "eats" part of the picture, just like they are masking the image to a fixed format that can't be changed. Should it do this?

How I would love a function like Zoom Player's where you can zoom height and width independantly, without hitting any masking bars, the picture just stretches off screen. Is that more difficult to do with a TV card generated image, or is it just that not enough people needs this?

[Mastiff]

I have finally found an AR that works: 25:20. But I had to give up the AIW, it looks bad when I get it to the correct AR, no matter what I do. At the moment I'm running a Hauppauge WinPVR USB2 which I had laying around (you wouldn't believe what I have laying around here!), but that won't work in the kitchen because it has lag (that interferes with the sound of the nearby living room TV). I'm gonna try with a few other TV cards I have here, though.

[Yaobing]

Not sure what is with ATI AIW. Someday I need to try putting one of those in my computer again. Right now I have WinTV PRV USB2. It is a very good device.

[Mastiff]

I take it you don't have your computer anywhere near a regular TV, or at least don't use them at the same time, right? If mrs. Mastiff or the Mastiff pups are watching in the living room and I want to see the same thing when I feed the dogs, the echo's driving everybody totally bananas!