Recording Aspect Ratio

[hollow5555]

Just a quick question. When I record a show and then play it back it appears in letterbox, not full screen like when I just watch tv. Can someone explain why this is (I think I understand, but just a confirmation would be helpful) and let me know if there is a way to force it fullscreen on my tv?

Thanks
Marc

[sub]

It depends on a few things.

What capture device are you using? MPEG files produced by analog cards are always marked as 4:3, regardless of what aspect ratio they were transmitted in.

What video renderer are you using? Only VMR gives full aspect ratio control.

Are you using an MVP? There is no aspect ratio control on an MVP.

Did you press F7 until you got to the 'auto' aspect ratio?

[hollow5555]

I should know better than to post without more specs, sorry about that. The capture device is a Hauppage PVR150. It's set to use VMR9 Custom Renderer (video decoder and audio decoder are set to InterVideo. Is there a preference between this and default?) No MVP yet, just good old S-Video out on an ATI card (it's a dedicated box without a keyboard or mouse regularly hooked up, but I've set it up so I can VNC in while it's working and do what I need to do.

Pressing F7 until i got to AUTO made it look exactly the same. Even in "Remove Letterbox" there was still a slight letterbox effect, and then the whole thing looked stretched top to bottom.

This is really just a "Gee I wish..." kinda thing. If i have to live with it I can, I was just wondering if there was a way to make it look more like "regular tv".

[sub]

What shape is your TV? standard 4:3 or widescreen 16:9?

When I record a show and then play it back it appears in letterbox, not full screen like when I just watch tv. Can someone explain why this is (I think I understand, but just a confirmation would be helpful) and let me know if there is a way to force it fullscreen on my tv?

I'm trying to read between the lines. Do you have a widescreen TV, and you're concerned that the playback of this widescreen recording has black bars at the top and the bottom?

[hollow5555]

What shape is your TV? standard 4:3 or widescreen 16:9?

I'm trying to read between the lines. Do you have a widescreen TV, and you're concerned that the playback of this widescreen recording has black bars at the top and the bottom?

It's a regular 4:3 tv, no widescreen. I"m attaching a screenshot I took of playback. You can see what I mean, but I just noticed, oddly enough, that it goes away during the commercials, but I'm almost positive the show itself wasn't broadcast any differently than the commercials... Bizzare...

[sub]

This looks correct to me. The broadcast is being transmitted in "letterbox format". This is often used with analog broadcasts to transmit widescreen programming within a regular 4:3 picture. It actually has black bars at the top and bottom of each frame. I can tell this because if you look at the very top line of that screenshot, you'll see the black/grey VBI line - this the start of the visible picture.

I would suspect that it should look the same on your regular tv, unless you tv has some built in functionality which removes the letterbox when it detects it (some TV do).

You can see what I mean, but I just noticed, oddly enough, that it goes away during the commercials, but I'm almost positive the show itself wasn't broadcast any differently than the commercials... Bizzare...

This actually backs up comments above. The show itself is letter boxed (ie, not using the whole frame), but the commercials are using the whole frame.

Assuming I'm right, then you could remove these black using the 'remove letterbox' aspect ratio, but this will distort the image (vertically stretched). It is intended to be view with black bars at the top and the bottom on a 4:3 screen.

I hope that makes sense?

[hollow5555]

This looks correct to me. The broadcast is being transmitted in "letterbox format". This is often used with analog broadcasts to transmit widescreen programming within a regular 4:3 picture. It actually has black bars at the top and bottom of each frame. I can tell this because if you look at the very top line of that screenshot, you'll see the black/grey VBI line - this the start of the visible picture.
...

I hope that makes sense?

Yep, makes perfect sense. In fact, I just went to that channel to test a theory and, sure enough, it looks like everything on the Discovery channel is broadcast like that, meaning I've been watching that channel for years and never once noticed! Way to go me! Sorry to waste time then. Thanks again for the quick, helpful replies