On Thu, 2005-05-05 at 00:47 +0200, Reinhard Nissl wrote: > Hi, > > Laz wrote: > > I've just been replaying a recording which should have been 16:9 but was > > squashed horizontally to give a "4:3 within a 16:9 frame" type of thing, > > looking like some of the older stuff that the BBC broadcasts but this time > > the aspect ratio is wrong! I think the BBC broadcast everything as 16:9 but > > use AFD headers, or something, for programmes that should be 4:3. On my old > > system with a dxr3, I get a black box all of the way round (I think there are > > patches for the dxr3 to expand it back up but they only work for NTSC). > > > > Would it be worth having an aspect ratio config option for the xine plugin to > > force it one way or the other, if it gets it wrong? > > You might have discovered that my current patches for xine-lib report > the AFD value for streams containing that information. The idea is to > have an AFD post plugin which crops out the relevant area. I was running it with the vdr post plugins, as outlined in the MANUAL but they were having no effect on this recording! I will have to check to see if the verbose output mentions anything about AFD or aspect ratio. Removing the post plugins had no effect on the shape of the video. The OSD was stretched way off the top and bottom of the screen with the plugins included but returned back to a more usual size when I removed them, so I think this is probably due to a dubious recording confusing things! > And a further plugin might simulate AFD values for streams which don't > contain this information by detecting black borders on top/bottom and > left/right. > > A first approach is my patch to xine's expand post plugin. Just give it > a try as documented in vdr-xine's MANUAL. The patch crops out 4:3 > images, but also puts 16:9 images into a 4:3 frame (default > functionality of expand plugin). The recording I was watching last night definitely looked like a 16:9 image squashed sideways giving black borders on each side (which I shouldn't get on my 4:3 tv!). It may be that this was just an odd recording. Sometimes when I examine a recording with mplayer, it shows up as 704x576 instead of the normal PAL resolution of 720x576! (Not sure about my 'suspect' recording, though.) I thought everything was broadcast at the same resolution? Or is this the source of all-round black borders in some older transmissions? I am still trying to get the best settings for xine and XF86, hence my other question about command-line options! At the moment, I have disabled scaling in .xine/config which means that I have to switch my TV manually between 4:3 and 16:9 mode for the vertical scaling. Is this the way it _should_ be done, I.e. always send out a constant image size and let the TV switch? This is how my DVD player does it. Of course, you would need to generate the relevant voltages at the SCART connector! ;) (I still have no OSD with xine-0.7.3 but haven't really had much time to debug.) Cheers, Laz
