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[DMark1]

Is it possible to change where the movie control bar shows up on screen?  If so, what settings should I change?

The issue is that when using an anamorphic lens with a projector and a 2.35:1 aspect ratio screen, the control bar appear above the screen, and you can't see it.  How can I make it appear on the viewing area?

[Matt]

Welcome.

I think the best solution to this problem is if you can get your graphics card and projector to work together so that no part of the Windows desktop is off the screen.  I thought there were ways to do this in the video driver control panel, although I don't have any personal experience.

mojave has talked about this topic a lot on our forum, so maybe he'll see this and have some advice.

[mojave]

Both Nvidia and AMD allow you to resize your desktop to fit the screen area. In the Nvidia Control Panel you use Display > Adjust desktop size and position > click the size tab. 

This method doesn't work in three cases:
1.  If you want to use Automatic Display Settings changing in JRiver then the custom resolution size isn't exposed
2.  If you manually mask your screen you need to then manually change resolutions
3.  If your projector auto zooms based on aspect ratio then you will be incorrect for 1.78 or 4:3 content

The reason it doesn't work for these instances is Nvidia and AMD both still treat the resized desktop as 1920x1080, but they limit the picture shown within that resolution. JRiver expects a resolution of 1920x810 (or something like that) and 1920x1080 to still be available for 1.78 or 4:3.

A more elegant solution would be for JRiver to allow one to define aspect ratios with zoom, size, and position settings that always apply to that aspect ratio. It would also always keep its controls within the aspect ratio's boundaries. I have to manually do this for each movie the first time I watch it and I've given up on having the GUI available for 2.35 movies when watching with my projector. I manually lower the screen more if I have to see the GUI.

[DMark1]

So if I understand you, there is no way for JRiver to change the actual position of the GUI control bar while displaying movies, it would have to be done by defining a custom resolution in the computer's settings...?

Won't a custom setting reduce the picture's resolution??  I would think you want to stick with a native resolution size of 1920x1080 for the best picture quality....?

 

[mojave]

A 2.35 image is 1920 wide x 816 pixels high. The other pixels are above and below your screen area. By changing your resolution you are telling JRiver to only show itself within 816 pixels of height. The pixels stay the exact same size whether you are looking at 1920 x 1080 or 1920 x 816 so you aren't losing resolution.

You do loose resolution if you are using 1920 x 816 and then watch a 1.78 or 1.33 aspect ratio movie. For 1.78 you then only have 1450 x 816. However, this is still more pixels than a 720p screen.

To use your full resolution with 1.78 or 1.33, you need to zoom the projector so the full 1920 x 1080 fits into the screen . . . but now you need to switch your resolution to 1920 x 1080.

[6233638]

Are you actually using an anamorphic lens, or a projector that supports zoom presets?

I was under the impression that when using an anamorphic lens, you had to stretch the image vertically to fill the 1920x1080 frame, and the lens then stretches that out horizontally.
Using a projector that supports the zoom method of "anamorphic" projection, you render 1920x810 and lose the top and bottom of the image as they get zoomed off your screen.

Either way, if that is what you need, it's very easy to do with a custom resolution on Nvidia.


This will output a standard 1080p signal, but only render to 1920x810 inside it.

[DMark1]

Ah, OK, now I understand better. My client is using an actual anamorphic lens with his projector.

The image is stretched vertically in the JVC projector to fill the entire 16:9 DILA (LCOS) panel, then the lens stretches the projected image horizontally to the intended 2.35:1 aspect ratio to fill the whole 2.35:1 screen. This allows him to take advantage of all the available pixels from the projector's LCOS panel, in theory, giving him a brighter picture, and a constant height image across various aspect ratios. 

[Matt]

In the case of a true anamorphic lens, wouldn't it be best to deliver 1080p from the computer to the panel?

You could set MC to use aspect ratio correction in Options > Video > Advanced > Aspect ratio correction to account for the lens effectively making the pixels non-square.

We don't support the aspect ratio correction for the OSD, image playback, Theater View, etc. so I suppose those areas might look a little stretched, but it's hopefully not a huge deal.

[6233638]

Ah, OK, now I understand better. My client is using an actual anamorphic lens with his projector.

The image is stretched vertically in the JVC projector to fill the entire 16:9 DILA (LCOS) panel, then the lens stretches the projected image horizontally to the intended 2.35:1 aspect ratio to fill the whole 2.35:1 screen. This allows him to take advantage of all the available pixels from the projector's LCOS panel, in theory, giving him a brighter picture, and a constant height image across various aspect ratios.

I see. It sounds like he is cropping the top and bottom off the image and doing the vertical scaling in an external video processor, rather than having Media Center scale the image to fill the screen, and letting the lens handle the horizontal expansion.

For the best image quality, he should let madVR handle the vertical image scaling (assuming he is using Red October HQ) which would also avoid the problem of the edges of the screen being cut off.