Widescreen XVID Movies Play Squashed on 4:3 TV

[mroy79]

I have a regular 4:3 format tv, and GBPVR recordings play fine, but for DVD's that I've converted to XVID AVI's (576x320 resolution) they play a little squashed. If I play the same
AVI's in WMP, they display properly. If I change the tv format setting to 16:9 in the GBPVR config, they'll play fine, but then the recorded tv shows are squished.

Here's a comparison of two samples of the same movie:
http://www.mikepearce.us/gbpvr_sample.jpg

The movie on GBPVR is playing at about 3/4 the height of what it should be.

Anybody else have the same problem? Any idea how to get GBPVR to ignore the aspect ratio so they'll play normally?

[gEd]

with the ratio set to 4:3 have you tried pressing F7 to cycle through the various ways that gbpvr displays content?

[pvrtinkerer]

I've noticed that there are some modes my display finds itself in that just don't respond to the aspect ratio control. It's interesting, actually.

When aspect ratio control works, pausing and OSD overlay a black mesh over the image, or just black the screen entirely.

When aspect ratio control doesn't work, pause and OSD coexist with the image just fine.

Since I'm on a Win2K box, the only renderer option I have is overlay, so that isn't what's changing. What mode the display finds itself in seems quite unpredictable, with a few exceptions. When the machine first boots and gbpvr starts from the startup, then aspect ratio control doesn't work. After I've ran config or otherwise mucked about in Windows, sometimes it will work and sometimes it won't.

Any idea what's going on?

[nitrogen_widget]

What mpeg & .avi codecs are you using?

[pvrtinkerer]

I'm playing around and it is not a codec issue. It is a video drivers and settings issue. I am discovering that I can force aspect ratio control (and its attendant grids and blackouts) by setting display resolution to 800x600 16bit, and can force no aspect ratio control by setting resolutions of 640x480 or smaller. There must be a sweet spot in there that will allow OSD and pausing, while also allowing aspect ratio control.

[mroy79]

gED: I've used GBPVR for a long time but didn't know about F7. If I cycle through all the options to Auto, I get the right sized image. So I wondered if it would stick after closing and reopening GBPVR, and it doesn't. However isn't it set to Auto by default? And if so, why would it compress the image like that before flipping through all the options with F7?

[sub]

It usually does remember the last aspect ratio, and the default is 'auto'. What video renderer are you using? (overlay?)

[paulzy]

I'm having the same problem as what is described in the first post. It started yesterday when I upgraded DIVX thanks to the auto update. I have since uninstalled DIVX and the problem still remains. I'm using VRM9 with the NVidea Decoder. when I cycle wth F7 to "Letterbox" it looks right on XVID avis but as soon as I close the file and open another one its right back to square 1. I was using 0.98.5 until a few minutes ago when I upgraded to 0.99.5. The problem remains.

[paulzy]

Also its not just the image that is being compressed, all the GBPVR menus are as well. And I know for a fact it started when DIVX was updated because I watched a file yesterday and it was fine, the same file today, squashed. Recordings are fine.

[mroy79]

I use VMR9 as well.