Fixing Tv Screen Aspect

[Here's Jonny]

Probably a daft question..
But...

How do I force the Live Tv screen to be 4:3, 16:9 etc ??

Thanks

[chud]

you can use the GBPVR aspect ratio controls (f7 i believe, i've mapped it to the # key on my remote). to get an exact 4:3 aspect ratio, you may have to create a custom aspect ratio by editing the gbpvr\config.xml file.

i am outputting the picture to a 16:9 HDTV through DVI. i created several custom aspect ratio settings to give me 4:3, slightly more stretched than 4:3, and one which zooms a 16:9 letterbox to full screen.

the GBPVR aspect ratio controls essentially scale the picture and are defined by specifying the position of two opposite diagonals in units of fraction of the full screen. so, the picture stretched to full screen is 0,0,1,1.

if you want an exact 4:3, you need to first figure out a horizontal scale factor:

a = (4/3)*vr/hr

where hr is your windows horizontal resolution and vr is your vertical resolution in pixels. for instance, "a" for a 1280x720 resolution is 0.75. this means that you have to scale the pictures horizontally by 75% for a true 4:3 aspect ratio picture.

putting this into the custom aspect ratio settings, you need to move one corner in 12.5% and the other corner 12.5% to get the 25% reduction and keep the screen centered: 0.125,0,0.875,1

hope that helps...

[Here's Jonny]

Thanks for that..

In Live Tv mode, The image corrupts when I press F7.

The image sort of goes to the top left corner of the Live Tv Page and the rest of the page shows corrupt data !!

Any Ideas ??

[chud]

make a copy of your config.xml file. then edit it with a text editor and search for "aspect". eventually you should find a series of aspect ratios listed (i think by default there are 9 or something). delete them all except for the one labelled "0" and the one labelled "1". edit one to the values i posted above. fire up GBPVR again and try F7 again while viewing livetv or video.

btw, are you using an MVP? i don't have any experience with these and honestly am not 100% sure this works on them.

[Here's Jonny]

cheers
Full screen works well, but 4:3 is still off !!
My monitor s running @ 1280*1024

So wht do I need to do for 4:3 and 16:9 ??
Thanks

[chud]

sorry, when i said to "edit one" i meant to edit 1 "AspectRatio1" to be the above values.

when you say it is "off", do you mean it is not 4:3 or that it is still flying off to the left corner?

ok what is your setup? are you outputting (via VGA or DVI) to a 16:9 HDTV or just watching on a monitor?

your resolution is 1280x1024 which is a 5:4 ratio. i had given you those ratios assuming you were using a ratio larger than 4:3 (like 16:9) but you are actually running a smaller ratio. in that case you need to letterbox (as opposed to the side borders, can't remember the terminology) and should set a GBPVR aspect ratio to:

0,0.03125,1,0.96875

[lchiu7]

I find that widescreen videos (16:9) display a bit too vertically stretched when viewed on my 16:9 TV though they display full screen. I would like to reduce the height a bit but as soon as I press F7 and cycle through the settings, the picture is corrupted for all settings but the default (I get no picture at all - just inteference on the screen). I am sending the picture from my PVR to the TV via the VGA input on the TV (this is a Toshiba 52: DLP with native res of 1280x720 and able to handle a desktop res of 1024x768)

[Here's Jonny]

I'm watching on a monitor @ 1280 * 1024

The image ends up being in the top left corner of the Live Tv window and the rest of the window is garbage !

[sub]

The image ends up being in the top left corner of the Live Tv window and the rest of the window is garbage !

Can you give us a screenshot?

[chud]

I find that widescreen videos (16:9) display a bit too vertically stretched when viewed on my 16:9 TV though they display full screen. I would like to reduce the height a bit but as soon as I press F7 and cycle through the settings, the picture is corrupted for all settings but the default (I get no picture at all - just inteference on the screen). I am sending the picture from my PVR to the TV via the VGA input on the TV (this is a Toshiba 52: DLP with native res of 1280x720 and able to handle a desktop res of 1024x768)

are you running a resolution of 1024x768? you would do well to switch to the native res of your tv as DLP's are fixed pixel displays so you currently are not getting 1:1 mapping and your picture will suffer.

seems strange that this would be happening. you haven't changed the default aspect ratio settings? what happens if you have GBPVR in a window (ie, not fullscreened) and press F7?