2.35:1 stretched to fullscreen on TV

[cj]

Hi.

Noob alert here! I have searched and tried a few things that seemed related but nothing's worked for me.

I have a GTX8800 connected to a Panasonic 50PX60 plamsa DVI -> HDMI.

The problem is that when playing letterbox films in VLC they fill the plasma (ie, they are stretched vertically). When playing 16:9 it all works as it should. I am using Nvidia's latest drivers and it's set up as a Dual display, not clone, etc. Changing ratio/crop settings via the "a" and "c" keys has no effect on the plasma.

Any help appreciated!

[DJ]

A 2.37:1 aspect ratio does not and should not fill a 16x10 monitor or TV as the picture will be distorted. This does not make a difference if it's hardware or a software system.

[cj]

Yes.... that is my problem basically. The image is distorted by the fact it's filling the display... the questions i have is - how do I stop it!? How to I make VLC/my tv show black bars above and below the 2.35 (2.37?) image?

Edit: using the ratio button on the tv remote does not fix this.

[bambi851]

I have the same issue with my Sony HDTV, with an Nvidia 6600GT.

[DJ]

Letter boxed video does not contain black borders. This is why 16x9 video was presented for years as a 4x3 frame with 16x9 content. But people hated the borders and wanted to fill their screens. Once the frame is removed (cropped) there is no compatibility for TVs without creating a frame for 4x3 TVs. If the (Wide screen) TV has a letterbox function this may serve and allow it to be portrayed correctly.

There are also transcoding programs that will allow padding to create the borders.

For more info... see the doom9 forum and or http://www.videohelp.com

[cj]

Thanks for the info.

I think it may be an Nvidia driver issue. I have discovered, after hours of playing, a workaround albeit not a very elegant one - make the plasma TV the primary display for the duration of the movie!

thanks again for the advice, will check out that link.

[DJ]

There is some question at this point, that if you were to burn a movie (DivX or XviD) to disk and then put it in a hardware DVD player that the same issue may occur. It should be the TV that provides the letterbox when one is not present and is should do this based on the aspect ratio (2.37:1).

[mapex]

My setup: nVidia GeForce4 4200 Go video card on a Dell Latitude D800 laptop running Vista Ultimate, connected with S-Video to a movie projector

The problem of VLC being unable to adjust the aspect ratio of the s-video output arose after installing Vista. Since there are no Vista drivers available for this particular video card, I installed the latest XP drivers from the Dell website, which worked out perfectly fine.

The problem is permanently solved when the video output module is changed to DirectX as follows:
Settings > Preferences > Video (expand) > Output module > enable advanced options > choose DirectX video output instead of default

Reply if this does not work.

Cj's workaround of making the external device the primary display works too for me, but the permanent solution may appeal to a greater audience.

[DJ]

The default output for VLC is DirectX, however it does not recognize DirectX 10 in Vista. So you must explicitly set VLC to DirectX.