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PostPosted: Sun Jun 06, 2010 10:05 am 
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Joined: Wed May 12, 2004 1:13 am
Posts: 82
Location: Germany
I've got two hauppauge pvr cards in myx LinHes on archlinux base.

now i hooked it up to an 16:10 hd monitor.

when i look a 16:9 broadcast ive got black borders on all sides.
how can i set up the system a way it encodes the videos on 16:9 ?

the most ivtv ctrl commands doesnt work or dont change anything!?!

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PostPosted: Sun Jun 06, 2010 1:22 pm 
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Posts: 106
I'm assuming those cards are only 480i, that you are speaking of the older pvr 150/250/350/500 models. Ok - see the title of the thread you are referring to the 250/350 models.

The trick is to have some device down convert an HD 16x9 signal over composite or s-video. To get a 480i recording in a proper 16x9 aspect ratio depends what you feed these cards.

For example, when I had that card I connected a DirecTV satellite box to the svideo input. The DirecTV box allowed me to set the output such that a 16x9 picture would be "squeezed" into a 4x3 aspect ratio and sent over svideo. In mythtv-setup where you configure the pvr card you set it in 16x9 mode. At least when I was doing this using 0.21 such a setting was there - don't know about now. What ended up is that the recording would "stretch" the "squeezed" recording so the aspect ratio was correct. Of course it's still 480i but for a few years before the HDPVR came out, it made watching these satellite HD channels at least watchable.

What I'm guessing is that whatever you are feeding the card now over svideo/composite is a letterboxed 16x9 image onto a 4x3 480i image. Hence why you get 4 black bars.

You have the 'W' key code when playing a recording to zoom/stretch - play with that with one of these recordings and see what the recording looks like with out the bars being displayed. If you can figure out some sort of "squeeze mode" from your source, you picture should look a bit better since at least there aren't any horizontal black bars put into the source video. But it still is a long way from HD. :D


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PostPosted: Tue Jun 08, 2010 11:16 am 
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Joined: Wed May 12, 2004 1:13 am
Posts: 82
Location: Germany
Well you are partly right, but the 720x576 pal signal is allways 4:3, but according to these threads

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=277380

the ivtv driver of the pvr x50 cards can be set to anamorph pixel aspect ratio.

but the discribed way doesnt change anything in LinHes :?

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LinHES R6 on:
MSI K8T Neo2-F & Athlon-64 3200 - 4096 MB RAM
GeForce 8600GT
Mystique CaBiX-C2, PVR-350, PVR-250, Terratec CinergyT² & DBOX2


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PostPosted: Thu Oct 28, 2010 12:51 am 
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Joined: Wed May 12, 2004 1:13 am
Posts: 82
Location: Germany
so noone uses these cards on an 16:9 tv?

because it have to work, but they changed the ivtv drivr syntax and I cant find the new aspect ratio configuration params... :cry:

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LinHES R6 on:
MSI K8T Neo2-F & Athlon-64 3200 - 4096 MB RAM
GeForce 8600GT
Mystique CaBiX-C2, PVR-350, PVR-250, Terratec CinergyT² & DBOX2


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PostPosted: Thu Oct 28, 2010 6:27 am 
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Joined: Fri Apr 02, 2004 10:08 am
Posts: 1637
Location: Virginia, USA
wulf wrote:
when i look a 16:9 broadcast....


That's the catch--they aren't broadcasting in 16:9 or in anamorphic 4:3*. They are broadcasting a 4:3 signal and letterboxing that to 16:9.

Otherwise (similar to DVD) it would have to be an anamorphic "squeezed" 4:3 image that could be stretched back out to 16:9, but all the 4:3 sets would get a squeezed image with no means to squish it back down to 16:9 letterboxed.

So your PVR350 is recording a 4:3 image (with bars top and bottom), then when you play it back on your 16:9 TV it adds bars left and right.

I'd say the easiest thing to do would be to hit Zoom during playback and try to fill your screen. You could set up some kind of transcoding that crops the bars, but then it'll have to zoom that image to fill your screen anyway.

(*At least in the States they don't broadcast any analog channels in anamorphic 4:3, granted it could be different in Germany)


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PostPosted: Thu Oct 28, 2010 9:39 pm 
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Joined: Tue Aug 15, 2006 11:14 am
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Location: Orlando FL
He was right above 16:9 content broadcast over 4:3 (letterboxed) then that 4:3 signal sent to your 16:9 tv which colloumboxes it. Durring playback if you hit menu (m usually) and go to adjust fill you can choose full and it will zoom the image to fill the screen.
Service Menu->Mythtv->Setup->TV Settings->Playback-> go to the second screen there is an option on the third line on the right to set the "zoom" mode I have mine set to "Auto Detect (Default Off)" this should see the Letterbox on a 4:3 video and zoom automatically. Unfortunately it doesn't allways work if there is a station bug in the bottom right corner it wont work, if the station pops up something on the lower third at the start of the video it won't work right.
You should also check the recording Profile's page
Service Menu->Mythtv->Setup->TV Settings->Recording Profiles
Then select your cards and adjust the default settings. You can change the pixel depth from 640x480 to 720x480 (widescreen SD I believe). You should test your settings in the "Live TV" recording profile first and do a test recording for a couple of minutes and then check it. Once you are happy with the results copy the settings to your default profile.


::EDIT:: you said above that they are PAL cards so I think the Resolution you want is 720 x 576 not positive on that wikipedia lists all the different PAL standards and I got confused.
Hope I helped.
MattBatt

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PostPosted: Sun Oct 31, 2010 4:11 am 
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Joined: Wed May 12, 2004 1:13 am
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Location: Germany
I am not shure if you get that right.

I think 16:9 material is broadcastd in full 720x576 size without letterbox but with a aspect ratio flag that is interpreted by the TV or the TV card to either letterbox it for a 4:3 screen or to show it streched full frame on a 16:9 screen.

that would meen that I loose much resolution on watching or recording that letterboxed material on a PVR card in cause of the letterboxing.

What do you say?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PALplus

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LinHES R6 on:
MSI K8T Neo2-F & Athlon-64 3200 - 4096 MB RAM
GeForce 8600GT
Mystique CaBiX-C2, PVR-350, PVR-250, Terratec CinergyT² & DBOX2


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PostPosted: Sun Oct 31, 2010 6:52 pm 
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Joined: Fri Apr 02, 2004 10:08 am
Posts: 1637
Location: Virginia, USA
wulf wrote:
I am not shure if you get that right...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PALplus


Aha, like I said, it is possible that things are different in Germany than in the States, and in fact they are. We don't have anything like PAL plus here, unfortunately, where you can send a signal to let the downstream TVs know you're broadcasting an anamorphic signal instead of a letterboxed one.

So we got it right, but only for the States.

And you got it right in that you have to add a command somewhere to force your PVR-150 to anamorphic. If the things in the link didn't work for MythTV, keep trying more searches. Or search for LinHES and ivtvctl maybe for some more ideas.


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