Help Required Auto-switching for 4:3 Video

mw963

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On a new topic, I've been meaning to ask this for ages for both the Edision Primo and the Octagon SX88 ....

When we're not watching French TV we seem to watch ITV3 and Drama a lot. And I have yet to find a way to get either of our TVs (Samsung and Toshiba) to automatically switch to 4:3 as necessary, when fed by either the Octagon SX88 or the Edision Primo. Has anyone else had this problem, if not I need to search through the settings (again!)?
 

Captain Jack

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Technically, only SCART connections have the correct signals to tell the TV what kind of aspect ratio the video has. Also, the transmission itself has to have some sort of flag for the receiver to translate; most video streams on a particular channel are of fixed resolution but different aspect ratio.

I know when I watch Columbo on ITV3, it does switch between the two, but the 4/3 image is filled to the edges of the screen, which means squashed top and bottom. I wish Sky boxes had more control over this. On E2 receivers, you can have it show with black bars on the side - but again, the transmission has to be correct. Certain channels are useless at that (such as MBC2 for a long time) - they are 16/9 transmissions with a 4/3 flag set...
 

LateAdopter

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On my Primo I ended up with the following, which I think works correctly, if the aspect ratio is signalled correctly in the mpeg pack header.

In Audio/Video settings:
video resolution = 1080p50
This fixes some skipping problems, primarily caused by the image processing in my Samsung TV. Also it means that the box does the deinterlacing rather than the TV. The box does excellent quality deinterlacing.

Auto frame rate = disable

TV aspect ratio = 16:9

Aspect ratio conversion = Letter Box
Actually it really means pillar box. So the box pads the 4:3 frame to 16:9, and the TV doesn't have to do anything.

I have the TV set to "fit screen" so that there is no overscan.
 

Lazarus

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I'll make this Thread "Sticky" for easy reference by others.

(My own Edision is with the Courier :D)
 
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