4:3->16X9 with black bars...
 

I asked this question in a forum at LDDb dot com. Twice. Asking here, It's easier to copy/paste the two questions from that forum:

"I bought an Svideo to HDMI converter. Converter outputs HDMI 1080P 16X9. Does anyone make a converter that outputs 4:3 in HDMI? I can change on two of my TV's from Full to Normal easily but a third TV in the Florida room is a pain. The setting is buried in the menu"...

Somewhat incoherent on my part, I asked again:

"Okay, I don't think anyone here understands what I'm asking:

You all have multiple LD players and one TV, correct? I have one LD player and multiple TV's connected to a home HDMI network. All TV's aspect ratio's are set to "full" (16X9). I have a DVD player, a Sony UBP-X1100ES. When I play a disc with 4:3 Programming it outputs a 4:3 image with black bars on both sides in 1080p. Two other Sony DVD players in the past, they would output a 16X9 image. I would have to go to every TV and change the aspect ratio's to "normal" (4:3).

What I'm looking for is a device that will convert the S-Video output from my LD player to HDMI. BUT, add black bars on both sides of the 4:3 image, like my DVD player. And then I can finally stop running around, having to change the aspect ratio on every TV.

Makes sense, doesn't it? Everything thrown at a HDMI converter is, 4:3"...

So I thought I'd ask here and see if I get somewhere...

IIRC my HDML cloner box (which I use more for recording HDMI, and occasionally component and composite sources to USB than as an upscaler despite it being capable of that) will take a 4X3 composite input and convert it to a 16X9 HDMI output consisting of the composite signal in the center pillarboxed by black bars on either side...I can double check for you later tonight after dinner.

Thank you, that will help...

The only practical way to deal with this is to use a cable box with a "zoom" button on the remote, or to use the "zoom" function on the TV itself if such exists (as a button on the front panel). Some older Zenith color TVs had a "zoom" button which caused the image to fill the screen if it wasn't full-screen already; however, I am not aware of any other brand of television having this feature, or what would or might happen if the zoom button were to be pressed when the TV was already displaying a full-screen image.

BTW, the black bars at either side of the picture (when viewing a 16:9 image on an older TV designed for 4:3 aspect ratio) will not damage your older TV's CRT, as there is no video contained in or on these bars. However, it is always best to expand the picture so it fills your TV screen, even if it causes some distortion of the image.

It does work the way I remember it working. The below picture shows the 16X9 HDMI output on my 16x9 Sony HD-CRT TV (which has a fair bit of overscan) and the 4x3 input on my 1971 Zenith..There is a bit of time lag in doing the conversion so the Zenith at bottom is a few frames ahead.


The device I'm using to convert composite video to HDMI is a ClonerAlliance HDML Cloner Box Pro Model CA-998P...I bought it off Amazon circa 2017. In the last year or two one of the YouTube channels I follow did a review of it as an analog capture device so I think it's probably still for sale new. If you watch the YouTube video I made Record Anything To D-VHS I show and briefly talk about the cloner box mid video...I also used the cloner box to capture the component output of the direct VCR footage in the video.

Broadcast and Blu-ray HD is always 16:9, which is why movies with other aspect ratios are either pillarboxed or letterboxed to form a complete 16:9 frame with black borders if needed.

Whether HDMI by itself can transport anything other than 16:9, I think yes, it can, after all my computer monitor is 16:10 and is connected over HDMI. But I think that consumer-grade devices will fit everything into 16:9 frame.

The digitizing box that I have has two explicit settings, for 4:3 and 16:9 source. If I select 4:3, it pillarboxes it into 16:9 frame, so the output is always 16:9. It seems that this is the result that you want.

12voltvids claims that his box, which is very similar to mine, but newer, outputs 4:3 as native 4:3 HD, which should be 1440x1080 with square pixels. Some of these boxes scale everything into 16:9, so if you have 4:3 source frame, it will be stretched to fill the screen, ugh.

Three fixed resolutions of these boxes, 1280x720, 1920x1080 and 1366x768 hint that they probably use hardware from decade-old TV sets. My plasma TV has native resolution of 1366x768.

Finally, got somewhere. I should have asked here in the first place. Thanks!..

Haven't watched your video, but based on the image thumbnail your unit was probably engineered and built by the same people as my unit...The remote and OSD menus on yours look identical to mine.

Yeah, they all pick from the same parts bin. But sometimes there are variations.

Guys, what your both using is capture devices. Just looking for an analog to HDMI converter with S-Video[1] that will take 4:3, add black bars on both sides and output 16X9.

[1] Has to have S-Video in, because the Pioneer CLD-R7G has a very advanced comb filter. (for 20 years ago)

If I use the Yellow RCA cable, the image looks like crap.

Fun hobby, Laserdiscs...

It is both a capture device and an analog video to HDMI converter, since it has a HDMI output that passes any input (or it's playback if you are using it to play off it's USB).

The only devices that have S-video in and HDMI output that are likely to maintain 4x3 pillarboxed output that I know of are some out of production DVD recorder/VCR combos. I have a Toshiba D-VR5 and a Panasonic that both might work that way. I can't test them right now because the Panasonic is a reserve unit not connected to anything, and the Toshiba stopped powering on after a power outage this week (God I hope it's not broken).

Finding something new with S-video that won't stretch it's output and doesn't have recording function is going to be fun. Good luck. Most of the Chinese stuff out there is marketed to cheap idiots with old gear, not videophiles.