TV Tuner software with 16:9 support

[Bill Stock]

Do any of the TV Tuner software packages support stretching a 16:9 image
broadcast in 4:3 format to fill the screen. In other words, I want to get
rid of the letterbox on my widescreeen LCD.

 

[Connected]

Do any of the TV Tuner software packages support stretching a 16:9 image
broadcast in 4:3 format to fill the screen. In other words, I want to get
rid of the letterbox on my widescreeen LCD.

I expect some do if you look at the box specs, my Viewsonic external
tuner does. But the image will look distorted because it wasn't
broadcast in native 16:9 ratio.

 

[Bill Stock]

I expect some do if you look at the box specs, my Viewsonic external
tuner does. But the image will look distorted because it wasn't
broadcast in native 16:9 ratio.

I knew I'd explained myself pisspoorly.

The new monitor is 16:10. Shows on the satellite like SG1 and Atalantis are
broadcast in 4:3 with black bars (letterbox) top and bottom. So the actual
viewable image is 16:9. My current TV software (Winfast PVR) will let me
stretch the image horizontally to fill the screen, but not vertically to get
rid of the black bars. So the image I'm watching now IS distorted AND
Letterbox. Software like PowerDVD lets you crop the black bars, so you can
get back to the proper 16:9 format.

TIA

 

[Bob Niland]

The word you are looking for is "scaling"; increasing
the image size by an equal amount in both horizontal
and vertical.

The new monitor is 16:10. Shows on the satellite
like SG1 and Atalantis are broadcast in 4:3 with
black bars (letterbox) top and bottom. So the actual
viewable image is 16:9. My current TV software
(Winfast PVR) will let me stretch the image
horizontally to fill the screen, but not vertically to
get rid of the black bars. So the image I'm watching
now IS distorted AND Letterbox.

Letterbox laserdiscs pose the same problem for wide
displays. Any w/s TV that lacks scaling is worth avoiding,
and this includes several recent LCD models. If there
were high-quality inexpensive aftermarket scalers available,
it would be a different matter, but I haven't found any yet.
It sounds like it's not a common feature of soft tuners either.

The reason wide TVs lack scaling is that it isn't trivial
to do properly. So anyone for whom it's an issue is
advised to bring test programming to the store, or only
buy when there's a return privilege.

 

[Bill Stock]

The word you are looking for is "scaling"; increasing
the image size by an equal amount in both horizontal
and vertical.


Letterbox laserdiscs pose the same problem for wide
displays. Any w/s TV that lacks scaling is worth avoiding,
and this includes several recent LCD models. If there
were high-quality inexpensive aftermarket scalers available,
it would be a different matter, but I haven't found any yet.
It sounds like it's not a common feature of soft tuners either.

Agreed. A friend recently bought a 27" ViewSonic LCD TV from Costco for a
"good price". But it does not do Scaling, so now he's looking for an
external solution. My Toshiba WS CRT TV has several cropping/scaling options
built in. I guess the software tuners haven't adjusted to the new reality
yet, as my older PowerDVD software does a decent job of scaling my DVDs to
the proper aspect ratio.

 

[roguejag]

This is a different question, but it may lead to a work-around. Do any
software packages support the zoom function? I use the zoom on my
Mintek home DVD to get rid of the letterbox. The 4:3 format cuts off
the sides anyway. I would have tried this with my computer (using
PowerDVD and Powerproducer), but my movies all contain Macromedia,
which I don't feel like installing. [The home workaround is to connect
a VCR/DVD between the cable source and the computer]