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Old 02-17-2016, 07:25 AM
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Talking SUCCESS!!! I have eliminated letterbox!!!

And here's how I did it!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCEa...ature=youtu.be
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Old 02-17-2016, 07:58 AM
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Not sure which is worse to me... letterboxed or the geometric distortion caused by vertically stretching the image. I usually use the "cropped" setting of my converter box. Neat device though!
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Old 02-17-2016, 08:03 AM
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You can horizontally stretch it too, though it doesn't appear as well on the monitor I used for the video. So, in effect, it's a "zoom".

This is especially good if you use Netflix over an agile modulator, which on some series, like the old Star Trek, it appears badly horizontally compressed.
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Old 02-17-2016, 08:17 AM
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There are a few low power stations on the air with aspect ratio problems. Examples: One squeezes the picture into a 1:1 image! Another stretches the 4:3 to fill the 16:9 screen and the geometric distortion bothers me so much I can't watch it. I can deal with those using a converter box to NTSC output, but when I watch it with my DTVPal DVR and HDTV connected via HDMI, there is no way to undo what they are doing and make it correct. A scaling device like you have with HDMI in and out would be handy for those channels. I could put it between the DVR and TV. Doubt very much anything like that would be cheap enough though.
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Old 02-17-2016, 09:15 AM
Chip Chester Chip Chester is offline
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Here's a thread with a discussion of converter boxes that have zoom built-in.
http://www.dtvusaforum.com/threads/2...om-SD-channels
It was the first Google hit. I would think a scaler + VGA-to-composite + RF mod chain would have some additional artifacts...


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Old 02-17-2016, 12:48 PM
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Not sure why you would want to distort the correct aspect ratio of the image just to fill the screen, however, as mentioned, scalers do work great to correct an improperly transmitted aspect ratio signal. Letterbox in itself is generally not a problem to solve. In order to view complete wide screen images correctly on a 4x3 screen it is the only way to display the full image and keep the correct aspect ratio.

Broadcasters used to use a method called "pan and scan" where they would cut off the sides of wide screen movies in order to fill the screen vertically and keep the correct aspect ratio, which caused loss of the sides of the original image. Letterbox, in my opinion, is the preferred solution for displaying wide screen images on a 4x3 screen.
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Old 02-17-2016, 02:03 PM
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That would depend on what you're watching too. If want to watch a movie, that's one thing.....but if I'm watching the news or SVU or something, I just want it to fill out the screen. Especially if I'm watching it on a 3" Pilot......
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Old 02-17-2016, 10:52 PM
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Does that scaler have centering controls in addition to size controls? The you-tube demo showed it expanding horizontally from the left side, which I would find unacceptable.
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Old 02-18-2016, 05:34 AM
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It does....it's got a lot of features.....admittedly I haven't played around with it as much as I should have before I shot the video.
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Old 02-18-2016, 07:28 AM
jmetal88 jmetal88 is offline
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Am I odd for preferring letterboxing to distorting the image or losing the sides?

A scaler like that would be great for correcting stations that broadcast video stretched to a nonstandard aspect ratio, though.
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Old 02-18-2016, 08:09 AM
Chip Chester Chip Chester is offline
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Here's some stuff on AFD. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_Format_Description

Pretty unlikely that "nonstandard" aspect ratios are being used, but perhaps "less-common". I would think a good DTV converter would interpret the AFD and morph it consistently as directed by your menu choices. I've not played with a lot of them, though. I do know I can't stand altered aspect ratios.

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Old 02-18-2016, 08:09 AM
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It's a "to each his own" kind of thing. I personally prefer blooming the picture enough to get the black bars out of what I'm watching.
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Old 02-18-2016, 12:29 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Chip Chester View Post
... I do know I can't stand altered aspect ratios.

Chip
The set top box we have from Optimum cable used to let you adjust the aspect ratio (we are using an older BPC TV set) but that feature went away after they did a software update of the box...
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Old 02-18-2016, 01:33 PM
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Some of my locals are doing letterbox full time on Comcast here.At first it was annoying .Now it does not bother me muck since I only watch it on a newer 2000's CRT curb find set.

I have 5 of those small cable DTA boxes here around the house.

What does piss me off is some of those Youtube users ruin videos by stretching the crap out of the vids.Nevermind the one sided audio on the videos .

Thank goodness for video editing and conversion software for I can fix the problem on videos that I like to save from YT.
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Old 02-18-2016, 01:35 PM
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My solution to filling the screen is simply to watch programming that predates HD and is not a wide aspect ratio movie....Everything else I prefer letter boxed. I rather not miss parts of the picture (one reason I try to reduce over-scan when I can), and more than a bit of geometric distortion is annoying. For a while after one cable had killed it's 4X3 feed they were stretching the 4X3 shows unevenly (the pillar box region was stretched more than the center), to fill the 16X9 frame they had decided on...This was on a NTSC channel so no cable box to fix the problem....It really ticked me off.
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