1 ratio for TV and another for video?

[mrspaces]

Hi folks!

Have set the AWESOME GB-PVR up to play my home movie video files but have run into a problem...

I have my freeview coming through in widescreen 16:10 but my home videos are all 4:3 and therefore in the wrong ratio when played.

Now I know I can press F7 to cycle through the ratios, but if I leave it on 4:3 then go back to my freeview - all the widescreen shows need to be changed again by pressing F7.

In an ideal world, I would prefer to have a setting for the video library so that automaticly display in 4:3/pillarbox but my freeview will stay in widescreen. The AUTO ratio does not seem to handle this too well.

Does anyone know of an ini that would allow this?
Cheers all and continued thanks for the AWESOME GB-PVR!

[johnsonx42]

Depending on the format of your video files, gb-pvr may have no involvement at all in playing them, other than asking Windows (DirectShow) to do it. Therefore it doesn't know the aspect ratio, and can't adjust it for you. For recordings and video file types directly supported by GB-PVR, it builds a graph based on the preferred decoders you selected in the config app, and also inserts a filter called the 'GB-PVR Flow Status Filter' which among other things catches the aspect ratio and reports it back to the app so the Auto aspect ratio will work.
For many other types of video file, all GB-PVR does is hand the file name to DirectShow and says "please play this".

[mrspaces]

Oh ok, I think I understand - thanks johnsonx42.
But if I open the video in (eg) VLCPlayer or any other player, the player will adjust to a 4:3 ratio and play the file properly.
I understand that DirectShow will be handling all that and so would the problem be in that DirectShow is not checking the video files and displaying them in the suitable ratio then?

There must be a way somewhere to get it to recognise he aspect ratio.

The other thing is that GBPVR can change the ratio by pressing the F7 button, so when that happens is it GBPVR changing the ratio or Direct Show.

Sorry that I am confused with all this but I thought the problem of detecting ratios was a thing of the past and since I dont know much about directshow (etc) I am stuck.

Thanks again.
mrspaces

[dennit]

GB-PVR ... inserts a filter called the 'GB-PVR Flow Status Filter' which among other things catches the aspect ratio and reports it back to the app so the Auto aspect ratio will work.

I wondered what that did - thanks!

[dennit]

if I open the video in (eg) VLCPlayer or any other player, the player will adjust to a 4:3 ratio and play the file properly.

VLC uses it's own filters. Try it in Media Player Classic Home Cinema - it uses DirectShow the same way GBPVR does.

BTW, I'm reasonably confident you can do what you want, but I can't give you step-by-step. If your format is not being handled by GBPVR, then you can likely get there by tweaking aspect ratio settings in ffdshow or the renderer.

[athomas]

If the video is reporting the aspect ratio properly, PVR2X should play it at the proper size when auto aspect ratio is selected. Try ffdshow tryouts for your PVR2X codec and select the information overlay to show the input and output aspect ratio. It will display the reported aspect ratio on the screen for you. Its great for trouble shooting.

[mrspaces]

Thanks alot to all who helped me on here - particular thanks to athomas whose last reply did get me going in the right direction.

Basicly I changed the ivdeo filter to ffdshow and then went into the setting for ffdshow and changed the RESIZE & ASPECT settings to:

overall resize box ticked with specify aspect ration seletced and 16:9 entered.
then at the bottom section called aspect ration i chose keep original aspect ratio 1:33.1
finally, on the right I selected resize always.

A bit if trial and error but for now it seems to be working for me and my freeview will dosplay in widescreen and my regular 'square' videos play in 4:3 when I use the video library.

Its looking good! Oh yeah... GBPVR is now set to AUTO and seems to be working fine!



mrspaces

[johnsonx42]

Glad you got it sorted. Yesterday after I replied to your thread I started thinking that maybe you'd be able to get ffdshow to do what you wanted, so I'm glad to see others put you on that track already.

To answer on other thing you asked, just for information:

The other thing is that GBPVR can change the ratio by pressing the F7 button, so when that happens is it GBPVR changing the ratio or Direct Show.

GB-PVR still controls the renderer, so F7 still works even on non-supported video types. But without the GB-PVR Flow Status filter, it doesn't know the aspect ratio so Auto doesn't work.