MVP and Aspect Ratio

[jtokach]

I'm not referring to the MVP with this. I mean when GBPVR itself encodes the recording, we'd have the option to add padding to the recording as it's being recorded.

This would mean that all of my recordings would be in 16:9, 4:3 video with side bars.

[sub]

Ok, I understand what you mean, but sorry I cant do that either - GB-PVR does no processing or manipulation of the video stream that comes out of the capture device.

You might be able to jimmy something up using the PostProcessing.bat and ffmpeg.

[jtokach]

Indeed, but the key problem there is "Post". Usually, we start watching shows over the mvp, while they're still recording. I believe this horse is official beat to death... Thanks

[sub]

I believe this horse is official beat to death...

Yep.

There would be no way to tell the hardware encoders to produce these black bars. Its just not a feature they provide.

[jtokach]

I'm thinking of a plugin that would monitor the recordings subfolders for new files. When detected, add a record to the db with title of "<Recording Title> 16:9" and then launch ffmpeg to re-encode the occuring .mpeg. This is close to realtime and of course would require double the disk space and some extra horsepower. postprocessing would need to be renamed so as not to run on the original but on the new. Technically, not that difficult, but I feel your pain with the "is it really worth it" question.

[zehd]

How about this...

(MVP always stays in 16:9 mode - menus stretch but it looks fine (sub even likes it!))

A 16:9 AVI plays in 16:9 and fills your wide screen TV

A 4:3 AVI plays as pillarbox on your wide screen TV

A 2.35:1 Cinemascope AVI plays as letterbox even on your 16:9 screen

ZProcess does this. It calculates the aspect ratios of these formats and adds the black bars as appropriate before it asks a transcoder to generate the MVP MPG...

But perhaps what you really want is this:
A 4:3 Recorded TV MPG plays as Pillarbox on the wide screen TV

This is also possible with ZProcess but you need to tell GBPVR to transcode everything including MPGs. sub added this feature in the last build. I have added a control to make it easier to turn the feature on and off.

It's not publicized because to paraphrase sub, 'transcoding is evil'. Basically I think he meant, the delay in viewing recorded content takes away from the viewer's experience and he would rather people have a quicker, zippier interface. Transcoding all video would make for a slower experience...

Another possibility for you is to NOT transcode the MPGs and whenever a recorded 4x3 MPG fills and stretches your wide screen, just change the shape of you screen with a blow torch and duct tape... I mean the TV remote...

Personally, I have a wide screen, albeit a small one, and I watch all of the content in the correct aspect ratios. I hate squish and stretch. If a TV show is 4x3, then I want to see the black bars on the side...

[zehd]

(This is my scenario actually: 2 mvp's on 16:9 tv and one 4:3)

This would be your only problem, having two 16:9s and 1 4:3. ZProcess currently remembers the settings globally.

I have been toying with the idea of making the settings dependant on which mac address is on what MVP. If this proves to be an issue for you, I will work on the code for keeping the three MVP ZProcess settings separate...

If you're planning on trying it out, try it as it is available on the wiki for right now...

[jtokach]

We're almost seeing eye to eye here. But there are a few show stoppers or maybe I don't understand ZProcess fully. Let me outline my needs and potential solution.

Must Haves:
-Proportionate aspect ratio for output (two MVP's connected to one 16:9 tv and one 4:3 tv)
-A reasonably stress free viewing experience with the MVP

Must Not Haves:
-On-the-fly encoding for prerecorded mpegs. Primary reasons here are comercial skipping and fast-forwarding.

Would be nice:
-if I didn't have to swap MVP aspect ratio
-if I didn't have to MANUALLY swap skins when swapping MVP aspect ratio
-if I could leave my 16:9 tv in 16:9 all of the time


Solution Requirements:
The only way I see possible to combine the haves and the have nots would be to:
1. Set MVP's to relative aspect ratio of the TV it's connected to and leave it that way.

2. Encode everything in 16:9 where 4:3 video has pillarboxes, 16:9 is full scale and 2.35:1 is letterboxed to 16:9.
-The 16:9 MVP would display all contect correctly.
-The 4:3 MVP would display all 4:3 content correctly in full screen as it would auto-crop the pillar-boxes. True 16:9 content would be cropped: not desireable, but is already the case.

3.To retain fast-forward, comskip and performance, the files would need to be encoded prior to viewing.

4. To be able to watch a recording in progress on the 16:9 MVP, the recording would need to be intercept as it's occuring and encoded right then. You maintain the same amount of control in fast-forwarding and rewinding but lose some performance.

When all four of these requirements are met:
-aspect ratio would be proportionate, except on the 4:3 mvp with full 16:9 content, which doesn't function now anyway. (ZProcess here perhaps)
-On-the-fly encoding would only occur as the recordings occur and on AVI. (Potential for major performance issues.) Fast-forward, rewind, comskip would all work as they do now, but performance would absolutely be hindered while recordings were in progress, maybe to the point of the MVP being unresponsive and/or rebooting. I get degraded mvp performance now when comskip runs on 2.8GHz with 1GB... Stress may increase and WAF may plunge.
-there would be no further swapping of aspect ratios on the tv, the mvp or the skins.
-Prerecorded mpegs would be encoded to 16:9

Alternative:
Manually switch everything and actually put the dvd in my dvd player.

-Since I haven't tried the MVP in 16:9 mode yet, I can't speak to how inconvenient manually switching is.
-Our viewing of 16:9 content is limited right now to the occasional downloaded tv episode in widescreen and all 16:9 movies were encoded with letterbox. But, my goal is to have all of my movie in AVI so I can have them on my Zen Vision M and be able to watch them in full screen glory on my 16:9 which brings us back to the inconvenience having to swap the MVP aspect ratio vs. suck it up vs. do some elaborate encoding and increase Tylenol consumption.

With that, ZProcess may solve this equation if it's simpler to encode just my AVI stuff on-the-fly (which has to happen on the MVP anyway) with the proper aspect ratio. Multiple MVP's/profiles would need to be addressed and I just can't imagine wanting to swap the MVP aspect ratio on any sort of frequent basis.

Sorry, I did a lot thinking out loud here...

[zehd]

We're almost seeing eye to eye here. But there are a few show stoppers or maybe I don't understand ZProcess fully. Let me outline my needs and potential solution.

Must Haves:
-Proportionate aspect ratio for output (two MVP's connected to one 16:9 tv and one 4:3 tv)
-A reasonably stress free viewing experience with the MVP

ZProcess can do that IF...

Must Not Haves:
-On-the-fly encoding for prerecorded mpegs. Primary reasons here are comercial skipping and fast-forwarding.

Ain't gonna happen... If you want aspect ratio, gonna have to transcode on the fly. Sub has said quite often how he has no control over the aspect ratio on the MVP. ZProcess has been the only real alternative...

Would be nice:
-if I didn't have to swap MVP aspect ratio
-if I didn't have to MANUALLY swap skins when swapping MVP aspect ratio
-if I could leave my 16:9 tv in 16:9 all of the time

You could if you transcoded on the fly

2. Encode everything in 16:9 where 4:3 video has pillarboxes, 16:9 is full scale and 2.35:1 is letterboxed to 16:9.
-The 16:9 MVP would display all contect correctly.
-The 4:3 MVP would display all 4:3 content correctly in full screen as it would auto-crop the pillar-boxes. True 16:9 content would be cropped: not desireable, but is already the case.

16:9 content on 4x3 TV would be letterbox

I have all my 4x3 TV/MVP set to 16:9 (via the Hauppauge software) That's to allow ZProcess full control over maintaining aspect ratio and create pillar, letter and fullscreen boxes. Changing my MVP over to the Wide Screen TV, I do not have to change anything.

In short, I would have all MVPs in 16:9 mode

3.To retain fast-forward, comskip and performance, the files would need to be encoded prior to viewing.

You know the answer to this one. If you transcode on the fly, you will not be able to use comskip nor ff/rw/ skipping. As far as commericals, I would cut them out using whatever method you like, comclean, videoredo etc...

Stable skipping just isn't going to happen any day soon...

4. To be able to watch a recording in progress on the 16:9 MVP, the recording would need to be intercept as it's occuring and encoded right then. You maintain the same amount of control in fast-forwarding and rewinding but lose some performance.

This isn't going to happen for the above reasons...

When all four of these requirements are met:
-aspect ratio would be proportionate, except on the 4:3 mvp with full 16:9 content, which doesn't function now anyway. (ZProcess here perhaps)
-On-the-fly encoding would only occur as the recordings occur and on AVI. (Potential for major performance issues.) Fast-forward, rewind, comskip would all work as they do now, but performance would absolutely be hindered while recordings were in progress, maybe to the point of the MVP being unresponsive and/or rebooting.

I'm sorry if I'm repeating myself

I get degraded mvp performance now when comskip runs on 2.8GHz with 1GB... Stress may increase and WAF may plunge.

This is something entirely different, and should be addressed and fixed. I can have two recordings record, both with comskip crunching away, viewing a recorded MPG on the MVP, and skip through commercials all on a 2.1Ghz...

KEEPING WAF HIGH IS IMPORTANT!!!

-there would be no further swapping of aspect ratios on the tv, the mvp or the skins.

Skins are cosmetic and, well, skin deep. The default blue skin looks great on 4x3 and stretched to 16x9. That's all sub uses (i'm pretty sure) and that's all I test with. I understand that you want to customize, and that's a part of the fun, but let's keep this part out for right now...

-Prerecorded mpegs would be encoded to 16:9

If I remember you posts earlier, you already have your recorded MPGs in 16:9.

Oh wait, you originally asked to have the pillars added during recording. Sorry, 'what sub said....'

Alternative:
Manually switch everything and actually put the dvd in my dvd player.

I have no idea what you mean...

-Since I haven't tried the MVP in 16:9 mode yet, I can't speak to how inconvenient manually switching is.

Why don't you try it. It's easy. You can set it and not look back. Everything will look exactly the same. Depending on your TV, you may (or may not) have a TV shape button on the remote...

-Our viewing of 16:9 content is limited right now to the occasional downloaded tv episode in widescreen and all 16:9 movies were encoded with letterbox. But, my goal is to have all of my movie in AVI so I can have them on my Zen Vision M and be able to watch them in full screen glory on my 16:9 which brings us back to the inconvenience having to swap the MVP aspect ratio vs. suck it up vs. do some elaborate encoding and increase Tylenol consumption.

With that, ZProcess may solve this equation if it's simpler to encode just my AVI stuff on-the-fly (which has to happen on the MVP anyway) with the proper aspect ratio. Multiple MVP's/profiles would need to be addressed and I just can't imagine wanting to swap the MVP aspect ratio on any sort of frequent basis.

For AVIs ZProcess is the way to go. Have all your MVPs set to 16:9 and leave them...

Your biggest problem is the 4x3 MPGs on the 16x9 TV. That has to be done on the fly transcode.... or TV Shape from your remote...

Sorry, I did a lot thinking out loud here...

That's OK, as long as you don't mind all the thinking I kept to myself as I was replying....

[zehd]

I want you to know though, that in order to have separate settings for ZProcess and your three MVPs, I would need to do some rewriting. I looked at it and I just don't have the time to implement a Medium to Large code revision... Could be a month or two...