Intractable Aspect Ratio Problem

[RustyMCE]

Hi all,

First of all the spec: Win 7, Geforce 9400gt, Asus G41MT-LX, LG 42" 1080p tv. UK user.

For years, I've had homebuilt Media centre systems, always running a DVT-T tuner for Freeview & a DVB-C tuner for a virgin stb.

I have always had the Virgin stb set to widescreen & that has always been how it has displayed via my media centre. I stress this is an image to the edge of the screen without going anywhere near the zoom function.

Recently I rebuilt the box with a new mobo & BGT 3620 tuner in anticipation of Freeview HD. The build was ok & everything was as before. However, the mobo was faulty & was replaced with a new one - same model & revision. Now, witrh no changes to settings, my cable channels have gone to 4:3, with black bars down the sides & the Freeview channels remain as normal.

How can I fix this? Bearing in mind it ran as desired for several years previously - it's driving me crazy.

[mark1234]

Do you really have a DVB-C tuner attached, or are you doing analogue capture from the STB? If you've hacked in a DVB-C tuner then I'd have thought it would pick up the correct widescreen flags in the same way that your DVB-T tuner does. If you're doing analogue capture then it is possible to make channels from that tuner Zoom 3 whilst keeping the DVB-T channels at Zoom 1. It's just a pain to get 7MC to learn that.

To make 7MC learn this setup you have to watch a cable channel, set Zoom 3. Switch to a Freeview channel, set Zoom 1. And repeat. Also try viewing recorded content from the two tuners. Eventually, and I wish I could be more precise than that, 7MC gets the message and will auto switch Zoom depending the source of the content that you're watching. It does mean, however, that 4:3 content from cable will be stretched. (Wishes cable card, or equivalent, existed over here...)

[RustyMCE]

Brilliant Mark, I'll try it & report back here...Just as soon as I've reinstalled my Blackgold 3620 which has dispappeared on reboot as usual...

[mark1234]

Also worth noting that I've never made this work on my extender, only the PC itself and even that sometimes forgets what it's doing. I wish there was a reliable way of forcing this.

[RustyMCE]

No joy I'm afraid. If I take the scart out of the virgin stb & plug it directly into the LG, lovely 16:9. If I put it through 7MC, back to 4:3. I've reinstalled the tv tuner & the GPU today. This is definitely 7MC forcing the aspect ratio. The question is, where?

[newfiend]

Did you run through setting up your TV in WMC Tasks/Settings>General>Set up your TV?
There are some options there for setting up what type of display you are using as well as apect ratio I believe..
newfiend~

[mark1234]

I'm a little confused which bit you mean is 4:3. Do you mean the output from PC to TV. ie, is 7MC itself in 4:3? Or is 7MC in 16:9, but video from cable is all 4:3?

If the former it's a graphics resolution thing. Assuming you're using HDMI, just set the 720p or 1080p resolution that your TV supports.

If the latter then it is because Media Centre doesn't recognise the widescreen flag on line 22 (from memory) of the PAL signal. It never has, there is a support article somewhere on microsoft.com from back in the XP era on this. So 7MC sees all video from the cable box as 4:3 and you have to use the Zoom settings when watching it to stretch it out to 16:9.

[RustyMCE]

Ok, perhaps not being the greatest techie bod in the world I'm saying aspect ratio when I mean overscan? Either way, here's some images to illustrate what I mean:

This is freeview on zoom 1:


This is the virgin stb on the tv's 16:9 setting on zoom 1


This is the virgin st on the tv's 4:3 setting on zoom1


and this is the virgin stb on the tv's 16:9 setting on zoom3:


Now the 4:3 setting on the tv is the extreme example & I would always have it set to 16:9 by default. The notion I'm trying to get over is that on Freeview zoom1, the image is more or less to the edge of the display & on the virgin stb it isn't, whereas in previous builds with this exact hardware configuration, it was! What I'm trying to find is something to modify either by add on software or in the registry or whatever, that will force 7mc to display the stb input as I want it.

[mark1234]

Picture 4 looks to fill the screen just as much as, if not more than, picture 1. So, just use that setting. AMD graphics drivers allow you to alter the overscan settings. I assume nvidia ones do as well, ages since I've had an nvidia card.

[RustyMCE]

Thanks Mark, but what I am on about is the automatic filling of the display without having to amend it via the zoom function. That's how it worked pre-rebuild & now it's changed??!!

[mark1234]

Fixing that requires the steps I mentioned in my first reply. Go to a Freeview channel, select zoom 1. Go to a cable channel, select zoom 3. Back to a Freeview channel, select zoom 1. And repeat until 7MC gets the message and switches zoom automatically. I'm afraid it's not any more scientific than that, Media Centre just seems to give in after a while and starts automatically switching the zoom settings.

[RustyMCE]

Well, it has spontaneously started working as intended. Having done nothing to it since yesterday, it's gone back to filling the display on zoom 1 via the stb. No idea why & obviously can't be certain if it will survive a reboot, but I'm happy with how it's running, Even the Blackgold hasn't disappeared overnight, so I'm cooking on gas for now.

Mark, thanks for the help, it is appreciated.

[CyberSimian]

I know that this is an old thread, but I was rummaging around the web looking for something else and I came across this article:

http://www.quantexzone.com/index.php/gu ... t-channels

I have not tried the suggested solution to see whether it works, but I thought that it might be of interest to those who have been experiencing this problem.

-- from CyberSimian in the UK