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More => Old Versions => Media Center 11 (Development Ended) => Topic started by: avid on August 01, 2004, 05:55:37 am

Title: Anamorphic output for widescreen TV?
Post by: avid on August 01, 2004, 05:55:37 am

My HTPC uses a widescreen TV (16x9) as its (only) display, driven through regular TV-out as 800*600. Zoom Player and DigiTV can handle this arrangement. So my TV, MPEG recordings and DVDs all appear fine, recognising that a pixel is not necessarily square.

I would like to use MC10 as an image viewer. But the pictures displayed are stretched horiziontally. My current work-around for this is to (separately) temporarilly change the aspect of the real TV while I am using MC to view slides. But this has two problems: (1) I have to find and use the real TV's remote control to modify the aspect (and to put it back after); (2) When I zoom in, I can't take advantage of the full TV screen width - I am limited to the 4x3 slice in the middle of the screen.

So - Can MC handle a wide screen TV output in this way? Any other suggestions as to how I could or should be using it?

Thanks

Brian

Title: Re:Anamorphic output for widescreen TV?
Post by: gpvillamil on August 01, 2004, 06:17:38 am

I would value this as well. My TV has a 16:9 aspect ratio, but DVI interface forces the computer to work with it at 1280x768 (instead of 1280x720, which would be perfect). Zoom Player has a very easy mechanism for making the 6% vertical adjustment. It would be great if such an adjustment were present in MC10 as well.

Title: Re:Anamorphic output for widescreen TV?
Post by: jleerigby on August 01, 2004, 04:17:34 pm

Won't powerstrip  (http://entechtaiwan.net/util/ps.shtm)let you do this?  

Title: Re:Anamorphic output for widescreen TV?
Post by: avid on August 01, 2004, 05:00:53 pm

Quote

Won't powerstrip let you do this?

As far as I can tell, PowerStrip won't help on the S-video out, which is all I am using for now. If someone can show me otherwise, I will be very happy to be wrong. I *might* consider making a VGA-to-SCART cable and using PowerStrip to control it, but I'm not sure I'm that competent or courageous!

Brian

Title: Re:Anamorphic output for widescreen TV?
Post by: jleerigby on August 02, 2004, 02:14:04 am

Did you try it Brian?  I use DVI to VGA now on my 848*480 plasma but I'm pretty sure I had powerstrip setting the correct res for me when it was VGA to S-Video.

Title: Re:Anamorphic output for widescreen TV?
Post by: avid on August 02, 2004, 02:25:53 am

In that case I shall try it. Somehow, I had formed the impression that PowerStrip couldn't handle it.

Thanks

Brian

Title: Re:Anamorphic output for widescreen TV?
Post by: Chris Shaw on August 02, 2004, 02:36:23 am

If you have an nVidia based card, check out TVTool as well

Title: Re:Anamorphic output for widescreen TV?
Post by: avid on August 02, 2004, 03:26:58 am

Nope - Radeon 9600. But thanks anyway.

Brian

Title: Re:Anamorphic output for widescreen TV?
Post by: avid on August 02, 2004, 04:33:05 am

The EnTech (PowerStrip) forum fairly explicitly answers a similar question with:  "PowerStrip is the wrong program for this - it only controls the VGA/DVI, not the TV out"

Brian