Wrong aspect ratio with Xine video playback

[cckrobinson]

When I watch TV that I've recorded from the "Media->Video" menu, the aspect ratio is all messed up.  4:3 content gets compressed horizontally (extra wide black bars).  If I watch the same show outside of LMCE through mythfrontend it looks fine.  I'm aware of the issue where Xine can't properly detect the aspect ratio of the TV.  I thought the recommended fix was to add a "DisplaySize 240 135" to the xorg.conf.pluto file, but that doesn't seem to work.

Has anyone else run into this?  Ripped and standard DVD's seem to play back correctly.  I haven't tried any HD content as of yet.  I'm running at 720p.

[Andreaz]

Have somewhat the same problem. 16:9 TV. DVD movies plays in 4:3 but they ARE 16:9. Some videofiles plays in 16:9 but others in 4:3.
Is there a config-file i can edit to "force" 16:9??

[norcal]

Im hitting a very similar wall. All of my xvid/.avi movies play fine, they show up in 16/9 if they were encoded that way or show in 4/3 and the images are not distorted in any way. However, any Dvd that is played from the drive or that has been ripped to the core shows up horizontally squashed. The movies are anamorphic or letterbox and my screen is 16/9 720P native projector. There is plenty of room on both sides of the screen for the image to be stretch so that it will display properly but it doesn't. I had messed with xine settings quite a bit trying to find a fix and nothing worked. I have posted a bug report on the pluto forums, if both of you could add your particular info to that bug report as well it might help the developers to troubleshoot the issue.

@cckrobinson I am wondering where you heard about this "recommended fix"? Can you give me a little more info on the process, i might give that a try myself. Cheers.

[sharlee_angelo]

the problem is this: on top of libxine there is a frontend called Xine_Plyer built by linuxmce developers. right now, the possibility of changing aspect ratio is not implemented. i've added a bug report with this.

[cckrobinson]

I came across the recommendation to use the DisplaySize option from this link:
http://www.kingcot.eclipse.co.uk/unichrome/unichromeTvOut.html
Upon further investigation you can find a description of the problem in the xine documentation.

Unfortunately, it doesn't fix the problem inside of LMCE.  I'm glad sharlee_angelo clarified that the problem is related the Xine_Player.  The funny thing is that I'm about 90% sure that I eventually got the playback to work correctly in of LMCE 1.0.  I was playing with the custom deinterlacing options, and about that same time it started working.  The Xine_Player may not support the API to change aspect ratio, but I'm wondering if there are other options that are supported that essentially produce the result we are looking for.

Currently with 1.1 Beta2, HD recordings are displayed correctly on my 16:9 TV,  but SD and DVD's get squished horizontally.  I hope this one gets fixed soon.  The work around is to watch your recordings through the Myth Recordings screen, but that's not as convenient.  It also seems to work if you play content back from MythVideo.

[norcal]

Which settings were you tinkering with to adjust the advanced deinterlace options? Were you just editing xine.conf?

[cckrobinson]

From the Admin page navigate to the Xine player device (pullup the device list in the left hand column).  You'll see a deinterlacing options field.  Depending on the deinterlacing level you selected from the Media Director page (high, highest, etc) it will adjust the Tvtime options that are used for post processing the image.  If you manually edit the settings from the Xine Player page, pluto will remember them as "Custom".  The default options are pretty good, but I don't necessary want that much post processing while watching HD since the image is pretty good to start with.

I hope that helps.

[norcal]

I guess you could add the stretch option to the post processing options although i guess that would end up stretching all images, even ones that should be displayed in 4:3. Anyway, if the issue is with the xine_player as sharlee_angelo suggested then it shouldn't be too hard for the devs to fix the problem. If the version that mythtv uses can autodetect that the source and adjust the screen/aspect accordingly then we know it is possible. I for one would prefer that the aspect was done automatically but even have a button to toggle through the different aspects would work i guess.

[cckrobinson]

In Xine you are supposed to be able to press 'a' to switch between aspect ratios on the fly.  I verified that this isn't supported in the Xine_Player.  I really need a fix for this one.  The only content that's displayed properly on my 16:9 TV is HD recordings. 

When can I find the source code for the Xine_Player?

[sharlee_angelo]

When can I find the source code for the Xine_Player?

http://linuxmce.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/linuxmce/trunk/src/Xine_Player/

[norcal]

Edit: Oops, beat me to it You could probably find it here http://svn.plutohome.com/pluto/ as far as i know the source for both linuxmce and pluto are there.

Also, i am aware that in xine you should be able to press "a" to change the aspect. But doesn't myth do this automatically by sensing the source and knowing the monitor specs? IF linuxMCE's xine_player could do that it would be a lot more convenient than having to do it manually. Perhaps the option to change the aspect manually as well could be included but I think that having it done automatically would better suit the Linuxmce experience. Do you agree?

[cckrobinson]

I agree that automatically switching would be better.