[mythtv-users] Aspect ratio (16:9 anamorphic)

[Joseph A. Caputo]

On Thursday 05 May 2005 13:10, Michael Haan wrote:
> On 5/5/05, James Stembridge <jstembridge at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 5/5/05, Doug Larrick <doug at ties.org> wrote:
> > > But are your pixels square?  720x480 is pretty close to square 
> > > pixels on 
> > > a 16:9 set.
> > 
> > I wouldn't think so, I'm using 720x576 too. I'll have a closer look 
> > tonight. 
> > 
> > James.
> 
> What do you mean by saying your pixels are square?  The text is blocky
> in the UI?

He's referring to the actual shape of a pixel on a computer monitor vs. 
a television.  Computer monitors have square (well, really circular) 
pixels, while TVs have oblong (wider than tall) pixels.  So an image 
that looks like a perfect square on a computer monitor will look 
'stretched' (i.e., rectangular) on a television.  I'm not sure if a HD 
television has oblong or 'square' pixels.

> I'm having issues which I think may be similar to others 
> mentioned in this thread, but not that one.  My issues is that since I
> got my widescreen hd and set my res to 1280x720, the letters in the UI
> are mostly unreadable (I have pretty good vision and can make them out
> if i take the time, my GF has no clue what they say).  I tried setting
> the UI to use "big" font and moved that up to 40, but that's really
> not doing much.  Is this issue related to yours, or should I address
> this some other way?

You probably need to set the DisplaySize in your xorg.conf or XF86Config 
file.  You need to trick X into running in 100dpi mode.  Run 'xdpyinfo' 
and see what it tells you your resolution is; if it's not 100 x 100, 
then that's your font problem.

Once you get that resolved, you may notice that things in the UI look 
either stretched or squished (depending on your perspective); that's 
the issue being discussed in this thread, which apparently requires a 
them designed for a 16:9 screen in order to properly fix.

-JAC