aspect ratio....again

[syncpuls]

I'm at a loss.. I've read all the threats on aspect ratio, but I don't seem to get this one resolved:

The GBPVR menu looks fine on my 19:6 TV (using the MVP) but as soon as I put up a 16:9 recording, the screen becomes smaller (black bars on the top & bottom on the screens). This seems different from what other people experience, if I understand the messages right.

It seems that the black bars are added when recording, so I've tried to crop them using VLC.

"c:\Program Files\VideoLAN\VLC\vlc.exe" %1 --sout=#transcode{croptop=50,cropbottom=50,width=720,height=576,vcodec=mp2v,acodec=mp2a,vb=2048,ab=192}tandard{acces=file,mux=ts,url=%1.mpg} --sout-transcode-canvas-aspect 16:9 --sout-transcode-fps 25 --sout-ffmpeg-keyint 16 vlc:quit

This does make for a pretty usable mpeg file, but even here, with the bars cropped; I still get the very small screen.

I've tried the various 16:9 settings in the config.xml file (for the MVP) as well as the setting in the config panel. As well as in the MVP boot dongle (using mvpmc now ;-) None of them seem to change much on my TV screen. The GBPVR menu always nicely fills the screen, but the videos don't.

I guess the source of my problem is that I don't really seem to understand what all the different 16:9 settings exactly do at all the different levels. I'd love some pointers on how to fix this...! All I want is to have the video screensize the same as the GBPVR menus, so that I don't have to change my TV settings all the time.

[sub]

GB-PVR doesnt have any really have any control over the aspect ratio on the MVP. It just passes the raw video data to the MVP and the MVP does the rest.

The MVP is pretty limited in what sort of aspect ratio control it attempts to perform, and the resolutions it can play fullscreen. From memory it'll only show fullscreen video for FullD1 or HalfD1 resolutions. If you pass it a non standard resolution which is cropped lines from the top or bottom, then it'll probably play it at the top of the screen, with a huge black bar at the bottom of the screen.

Its hard to guess what type of file you started out with, but if the output was a FullD1 resolution (720x480) with the aspect ratio of 16:9, then it should play fullscreen on the MVP.

[syncpuls]

thanks sub, I'll keep trying. I guess I'll need to do some tests with transcoding using VLC (for some reason ffmpeg always screws up the audio stream).

b.t.w. my setup is PAL, so I guess I'd better go with 720*576

If I'll ever figure it out I'll make sure to post a howto....!

[sub]

b.t.w. my setup is PAL, so I guess I'd better go with 720*576

Yes, FullD1 PAL is 720*576.