Analog HD Recording Plugin To Record 16:9 Widescreen

[johnsonx42]

BTJustice, if you record a 16:9 channel, and then play it back on the FILL aspect ratio, what do you see? Does the video fill the screen, or are there black bars top and bottom?

[sub]

BTJustice, if you record a 16:9 channel, and then play it back on the FILL aspect ratio, what do you see? Does the video fill the screen, or are there black bars top and bottom?

That is a good a question. Only a subset of set top boxes would output an anamophoric 16:9 image. Many set top boxes will only ever output 16:9 in letterbox mode over composite/svideo/rf, meaning it's really sending a 4:3 picture with the black bars pre-added. In this scenario, changing the aspect ratio headers wont help you, and you'd just end up with a distorted picture.

[johnsonx42]

exactly... I didn't think any set top boxes would do that on svideo/composite, but apparently the one Dvasco was using in that thread Martin linked did. the benefit if it did would be increased effective capture resolution, since no resolution would be wasted on the black bars.

[mvallevand]

Here the 4:3 SD file stretched using Fill, which in this scenario actually removes pillar box because the STB didn't add the letterboxing. The aspect ratio does appear to be right

Martin

[sub]

Here the 4:3 SD file stretched using Fill, which in this scenario actually removes pillar box because the STB didn't add the letterboxing. The aspect ratio does appear to be right

Yeah, that one is anamorphic. Most set top boxes arent though, and if you tell it to output widescreen over the analog output then you get letterboxed content.

[johnsonx42]

so what you need then is a utility to change the aspect ratio flag. that DVDPatcher Martin linked appears to be interactive only, you'd need to find a command-line utility to do it. then you can put it in post-processing.bat

unless of course sub gets a wild hair and wants to build something in for this... but it seems like such a narrow case its probably not worth the work.

[BTJustice]

BTJustice, if you record a 16:9 channel, and then play it back on the FILL aspect ratio, what do you see? Does the video fill the screen, or are there black bars top and bottom?

It fills the screen. No black bars.

[BTJustice]

Here is what I see using FILL...

[johnsonx42]

oops, when martin posted his screen shot I thought it was BTJustice's (I did wonder why BTJustice said he was using GB-PVR, but the first screen shot was NPVR... it still never occurred to me to check who posted it). Either way, I think my response above is correct.

BTJustice, your other choice is to fiddle with the aspect ratios. When GB-PVR displays what it thinks is 4:3 content on a 16:9 display, it uses the PillarBox ratio mode. The default AspectRatio Mode section for 16:9 looks is this:

Code:

<AspectRatioModes shape="16x9">
    <AspectRatioMode name="Auto" ratio="0,0,0,0" />
    <AspectRatioMode name="Fill" ratio="0,0,1,1" />
    <AspectRatioMode name="Remove LetterBox" ratio="0,-0.125,1,1.125" />
    <AspectRatioMode name="PillarBox" ratio="0.08,0,0.92,1" />
  </AspectRatioModes>

If you instead do this:

Code:

<AspectRatioModes shape="16x9">
    <AspectRatioMode name="Auto" ratio="0,0,0,0" />
    <AspectRatioMode name="Fill" ratio="0,0,1,1" />
    <AspectRatioMode name="Remove LetterBox" ratio="0,-0.125,1,1.125" />
    <AspectRatioMode name="PillarBox" ratio="0,0,1,1" />
    <AspectRatioMode name="4:3" ratio="0.08,0,0.92,1"
  </AspectRatioModes>

This just makes the "PillarBox" ratio the same as the "Fill" ratio. So when on Auto, GB-PVR will give you the correct ratio. Then for channels that really are 4:3, you can manually select the new "4:3" aspect ratio that uses the old PillarBox settings.

Yes, your 16:9 files are still recorded with a 4:3 aspect ratio flag, but you won't have to hit an extra key to play them back in the correct mode.