Fullscreen image - Myth/Xine integration

[RichardP]

I'm using a standard widescreen TV as my display. I had a lot of problems getting a full-screen image, until I found that Myth had a setting allowing it to run the UI and the Live TV at different resolutions.

In order to get a full-screen image for watching TV, the resolution I need seems to be 640x400, while 640x480 is what is being used for the UI.

However, I've had no such luck getting Video from the Media->Video menu to play full screen. Whenever I play video from here, whether it is the recorded TV or a DVD, the image has large black bars top and bottom, so that only two thirds of the screen is used vertically for the image.

Can anyone tell me how to get a full-screen image?

Best Regards,
Richard.

[totallymaxed]

I'm using a standard widescreen TV as my display. I had a lot of problems getting a full-screen image, until I found that Myth had a setting allowing it to run the UI and the Live TV at different resolutions.

In order to get a full-screen image for watching TV, the resolution I need seems to be 640x400, while 640x480 is what is being used for the UI.

However, I've had no such luck getting Video from the Media->Video menu to play full screen. Whenever I play video from here, whether it is the recorded TV or a DVD, the image has large black bars top and bottom, so that only two thirds of the screen is used vertically for the image.

Can anyone tell me how to get a full-screen image?

Best Regards,
Richard.

I would guess that you have your MD' screens resolution set to a 4:3 aspect ratio. Try setting it in the AVwizard to 720p that should fix the problem.

[RichardP]

I would guess that you have your MD' screens resolution set to a 4:3 aspect ratio. Try setting it in the AVwizard to 720p that should fix the problem.

Not possible - 720p is only offered for VGA - when you're using SVideo, the only choices are standard TV choices like PAL-B etc. Even if I could select it, I doubt a standard TV would be able to handle 720p - isn't 720p one of the High-Dev standards?

Best Regards,
Richard.

[totallymaxed]

I would guess that you have your MD' screens resolution set to a 4:3 aspect ratio. Try setting it in the AVwizard to 720p that should fix the problem.

Not possible - 720p is only offered for VGA - when you're using SVideo, the only choices are standard TV choices like PAL-B etc. Even if I could select it, I doubt a standard TV would be able to handle 720p - isn't 720p one of the High-Dev standards?

Best Regards,
Richard.

Sorry I did not realise you are trying to use S-Video. But the problem you are suffering from is due to the aspect ratio being set to 4:3 when you are sending a 16:9 aspect picture.

[RichardP]

Sorry I did not realise you are trying to use S-Video. But the problem you are suffering from is due to the aspect ratio being set to 4:3 when you are sending a 16:9 aspect picture.

How do I change that? I've been looking to see where the aspect ratio can be changed but couldn't find it. The AV wizard, in one of it's screens, has an option to select 16:9 dispaly, but I didnt' use the AVWizard to set up the display. If I do, the wizard switches my output to the VGA, even though I specifed S-Video, then when I reboot, all I get is a blue screen, and so can't run the wizard to completion. It worked under 0704, though. Under 0704, I had exactly the same problem, even though I set the display to 16:9.

Could this be a problem of incorrect resolution? My dispaly is set to 640x480, which would correspond to rougly 4:3. When watching TV under Myth, Myth changes the resolution to 640x400, which is closer to 16:9.

Best Regards,
Richard.

[rnmixon]

Maybe I'm pointing out the obvious, but if you do succeed in expanding a standard TV picture to fill the entire display width, the picture will be quite distorted - e.g. faces will appear quite fat compared to their normal aspect ratio.

[totallymaxed]

Sorry I did not realise you are trying to use S-Video. But the problem you are suffering from is due to the aspect ratio being set to 4:3 when you are sending a 16:9 aspect picture.

How do I change that? I've been looking to see where the aspect ratio can be changed but couldn't find it. The AV wizard, in one of it's screens, has an option to select 16:9 dispaly, but I didnt' use the AVWizard to set up the display. If I do, the wizard switches my output to the VGA, even though I specifed S-Video, then when I reboot, all I get is a blue screen, and so can't run the wizard to completion. It worked under 0704, though. Under 0704, I had exactly the same problem, even though I set the display to 16:9.

Could this be a problem of incorrect resolution? My dispaly is set to 640x480, which would correspond to rougly 4:3. When watching TV under Myth, Myth changes the resolution to 640x400, which is closer to 16:9.

Best Regards,
Richard.

Hmmm... the problem is that s-video out on all cards i have ever seen is limited to PAL/NTSC/SECAM resolutions. If you card will accept something like 640x400 then thats worth a try. Does your TV have any other inputs like component or HDMI/DVI?

[RichardP]

Maybe I'm pointing out the obvious, but if you do succeed in expanding a standard TV picture to fill the entire display width, the picture will be quite distorted - e.g. faces will appear quite fat compared to their normal aspect ratio.

That shouldn't be the case. I don't know if I'm using the wrong terminology. It is a 16:9 aspect TV - what I mean by standard TV is that it is not High-Def or anything special. So if I use the tuner to receive standard TV, the image will be a 4:3 image, with black bars on either side. If I play a 16:9 DVD in my DVD player, the image will fill the screen and look correct. However, if I play the same DVD in LMCE, the image will fill the screen from side to side, but have large black bars top and bottom.

My theory so far, which seems to be borne out by my experience in Myth, is that the full-screen image is being acheived using a resolution of 640x400, while the large bars top and bottom is the result of running the display at 640x480, in which case it is using the central 400 pixels of the full screen height of 480.

In Myth, there is an option to change resolution to 640x400 when watching TV. I can't seem to find a similar setting in the Xine settings.