[mythtv-users] Widescreen

matt at mattmarsh.net matt at mattmarsh.net
Thu May 29 16:23:01 EDT 2003


>hm? Analog TV -> digital TiVo -> analog S-Video -> digital MythTV -> 
>analog S-Video or analog VGA -> digital LCD? I hope you don't expect any 
>picture/audio quality to remain. 

hehe, it's not quite as bad as that, it's actually just
Analog TV -> digital TiVo -> digital MythTV -> analog S-Video/VGA -> digital LCD
(I'm going to use the MythTiVo plugin to MythTV to playback the recording 
from the TiVo over the network)

>Why not replace the TiVo with MythTV? 
>That's what it's for.

That would be fine, but then I'd need to build two MythTV frontend boxes
in order to play back to two different TVs and I can't afford that...
Money always limits some things...

>Better go digital DVB or analog TV -> digital MythTV -> digital DVI -> 
>computer LCD

The last step using DVI to a computer LCD would be nice, but I can't
really find a nice looking computer LCD which would look as good as
a TV in the bedroom... picky I know... but...
Of course if I go that route I'd have to put a TV tuner card in the box
too which I wasn't going to bother doing as it is only going to be used
as a MythTV frontend.

>>In which case maybe I'll have to go for a 4:3
>>TV instead. I would prefer to use a widescreen
>>if possible, but if I have to go to 4:3 then
>>it's not the end of the world.
>>
>Unless you use DVB, almost all TV is 4:3 anyways. OK, movies are often 
>sent with black bars. If you hack MythTV, I guess it should be possible 
>to resize the player window, then, like I suggested. Somebody will have 
>to implement that, though. And the resolution is of course not as good 
>as if it were broadcasted as 16:9.

>>If it can't play 16:9 MPEGS correctly, how does
>>it get on with DVDs in widescreen formats? Do
>>they work well or look dumb?
>>
>MythTV (the TV module) can't play DVD at all. You can start an external 
>player from a Myth button, e.g. Xine or Ogle.

Yeah, well that's what I was meaning really... I suppose what I'm asking
is, if I launch Ogle for example, will it size it to fill up the screen?
And if so, I guess that will make a 16:9 movie look bad?

>>This is why widescreen TVs generally do more
>>clever stuff than just stretching... they tend
>>to stretch them wide to fit the screen, and
>>then stretch them high too, but not by as much
>>but still it is then higher than the screen, so
>>it chops a bit off the top and the bottom. You're
>>left with something which looks reasonable.
>>
>uh, that's like intentionally messing up the picture.

Well maybe, but that's what widescreens do in order to deal with the
broadcasted 4:3 analog TV. And at least the implementation of that on
my Sony widescreen TV looks fine.

Matt



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