[mythtv-users] HDPVR HD Recordings are in 4:3 format

[Michael T. Dean]

On 12/13/2013 11:25 AM, Karl Newman wrote:
> On Fri, Dec 13, 2013 at 5:41 AM, Michael T. Dean wrote:
...
> Sorry, I just realized that I wasn't clear. When I say I switched hardware,
> I meant my motherboard died and had to be replaced, and I lost my built-in
> TV out (new MB has HDMI&  VGA only). There has been no change to the STB
> feeding the PVR-500. The converter changes the HDMI output of my computer
> to the composite input of my TV.
>
>> Anyway, it's strictly a display issue because it
>> happens with old recordings as well.
>>
>
>> Well, if that's the case, then you have X misconfigured and you're abusing
>> the "Video aspect override" setting to make it appear correctly--the 2
>> wrongs to make a right approach.  See
>> http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/Display_Size  (Or you have Xinerama enabled
>> and your "Monitor aspect ratio" setting is incorrect.)
>>
> It's entirely possible that X is misconfigured, but I fought with it for
> quite a while and even to get it to stay in 720p I have to issue a xrandr
> command in my .xsession script because I couldn't force the preferred mode
> in my xorg.conf (it used to stick, but an update to X broke it). Hmm... I
> just looked up man page for xrandr and I see there's a --fbmm option that
> can set the display size, so I'll look into that. Maybe if I set that I can
> get rid of the override and have everything work right.
...
>> The "Video aspect override" setting shouldn't exist and only provides a
>> way for people with broken configurations to make it seem like things
>> aren't broken without actually fixing the brokenness.  It only adds to
>> confusion when users are configuring their systems, especially when it
>> makes a broken configuration seem to work.
>>
> Yep. The "brokenness" in this case is primarily due to my HDMI->Composite
> converter, but I'm able to get it to work well enough for now. There comes
> a point where you've fought enough with arcane config files and arbitrary
> package changes and you just want it to fricking work.
>

Sounds like you're using 1280x720 output on your HDMI that's going to an 
HDMI->Composite converter, which outputs NTSC Composite (which is 
assumed by your TV to be 4:3).  If that's the case, you simply need to 
tell your X the proper DisplaySize to use.  (While nvidia drivers allow 
you to specify a DPI value, doing so would require doing more math, so 
I'm giving examples using DisplaySize--which presumes that you did *not* 
specify DPI to the nvidia drivers--if you are using nvidia drivers.)

If you have a 16:9 (physical aspect ratio--as in comparing the physical 
width/height of the) TV, you simply need to specify a 16:9 aspect ratio 
on the DisplaySize, such as:

DisplaySize 325 182

in the Monitor section of the X config file.

If you have a 4:3 TV, you need to specify a 4:3 aspect:

DisplaySize 325 243

I'm guessing you need the former. Just make sure in your Xorg.log, you 
see something on the order of:

(**) Dec 10 18:16:47 NVIDIA(0): DPI set to (100, 100); computed from 
"DisplaySize" Monitor

(though you may well have different DPI--the important part is that it 
was computed from the DisplaySize, rather than from some (broken) --dpi 
setting on the X command line that your distro decided to create havoc 
by including or similar).  Also, FWIW, your needing to use xrandr to 
force the 720p does make it sound like your distro is doing something 
terrible like specifying a --dpi argument to X.

Mike