Re: still no way to do custom aspect ratios?

I believe I now understand what is and is not working for you. I think I was a little confused by your use of Aspect Ratio and Resolution interchangeably.
Let us know if the following is correct and makes sense.

1024x768 is one of the standard resolutions used on square pixel 4:3 aspect ratio displays to get full screen correctly proportioned video as are many of the other resolutions you mentioned.
1280x720(720p) along with 1920x1080( i or p) are resolutions used to get full screen correctly proportioned video on square pixel 16x9 aspect ratio displays.
Your 1024x768 plasma TV has a 4:3 logical(real) aspect ratio and a 16x9 physical(appearance) aspect ratio.
When setting up your TV in Media Center it assumes square pixels and wants to know your aspect ratio in order that it can:

Give you a choice when sending a 16:9 HD program to a 4:3 aspect ratio display of letterbox or zoom mode.
-or-
Give you a choice when sending a 4:3 SD program to a 16:9 aspect ratio display of widescreen stretch mode or normal 4:3 plus side bars modes.

Many other programs. like the ones mentioned, depend on the user to pick the resolution that is appropriate for his display and for his source material and do not offer the options that MC does. Which by the way are similar to what digital STBs in conjunction with HDTVs offer for display modes.

If you want to send 1024x768 resolution to your TV in MC you need to tell MC that you have a 4:3 aspect ratio display and not a 16:9 display since it is asking for your logical and not your physical aspect ratio.

<chimpathetic@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:935710c7-aaba-4f8e-8a4a-7eb6af20eda5@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
I'm sorry folks, but this is a little frustrating. Forgive me for
sounding snippy at all. Did you ever get my point about other media
players, including Windows Media Player, having the ability to
configure what aspect ratio your display is? It does not have
anything to do with my video card. It has to do with the DISPLAY.
The point is that the media playing software will play various
sources:
1280x720 HDTV OTA broadcast
720x480 NTSC DVDs
720x576 PAL DVDs
Video files in various resolutions such as 352x240, 720x576, 352x224,
480x360, and 1920x1080, among others.

Now, no matter what output resolution you have Windows set to output,
these video files will have to be rescaled _by the media player_ in
order to fill the screen. Yeah, sure, if you have your desktop
resolution set to 1280x720, the HDTV broadcasts won't be resized by
the media player. But all the other sources will be.

Now, that's rescale #1.

If you have a TV that has a native resolution of 1024x768, widescreen
or otherwise, and you feed it a signal that isn't 1024x768, it will
have to rescale it to 1024x768. This means dropping some pixels when
downconverting from higher resolutions and adding pixels when
upconverting from lower resolutions.

That's rescale #2.

I'm trying to cut this down to a single rescale, as every time you
rescale, you muddy up the picture. This is especially true when you
upconvert something and then downconvert it.


That is why I'm trying to be able to set Windows to a desktop
resolution of 1024x768. I can do that just fine. I can then run any
number of media players like Windows Media Player, SMPlayer, and
ZoomPlayer and tell them that even though the desktop is 1024x768,
when they convert them to 1024x768, they should take into acount the
aspect ratio of 16:9. This way, the only do ONE rescale operation to
go from, for example, 720x480 directly to 1024x768 widescreen. Then
my tv gets the signal and doesn't have to rescale it at all, thus
avoiding a quality loss.

I'd like to stress that I can do EVERYTHING in the above paragraph in
other media players. I just can't do it in Windows Media Center in
any way that I can figure out. My point in posting is to see if
there's some kind of hack or hidden preference, or to try to figure
out where I can get this point across to someone who actually works on
Media Center so they can consider fixing it in the future. I love the
software and want to use it, but until this is a possibility, that's
not going to work.

Thanks again for taking the time to try to help.



On Feb 22, 3:52 pm, "JW" <J...@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I don't know if you will ever be able to get MediaCenter to be able to
handle a display without square pixels especially for TV since the NTSC and
ATSC TV standards also assume square pixels.
What make/model video card are you using and what driver release are you
using for it.<chimpathe...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message

news:9ad5dab1-87bd-45e9-8eb5-dd0337c0bbf4@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

>I don't think you fully understood my posts. The problem is not in
> being able to pick resolutions. The problem is in that Media Center
> does not seem to know how to handle rectangular pixel displays.

> On Feb 22, 1:43 pm, "jolt" <ergoac...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> Your best option would be to try powerstrip.

>>http://www.entechtaiwan.com/util/ps.shtm

>> The chance you'll find a solution to display all your media without >> bars
>> or
>> overscan on a monitor that uses a 4:3 resolution on a 16:9 monitor
>> doesn't
>> seem extremely promising. Support for ED HDTV ready monitors needs to >> be
>> in
>> the video card drivers to work well.

>> <chimpathe...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message

>>news:79fbe92f-5a62-4595-9afb-9ea34046f7ee@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

>> > I've searched and searched the web and newsgroups and it looks like
>> > I'm SOL. I have Vista and MCE hooked up to my Pioneer 4280 TV. The
>> > problem is that, like several other displays on the market, it's >> > 16:9
>> > and yet 1024x768.

>> > I want to run it in native 1024x768 to prevent going through two
>> > different rescales and the loss of quality. I can do this in >> > various
>> > media players by telling it what aspect ratio my display is. I can
>> > even do it in Windows Media Player. Yet MCE seems to have no
>> > understanding of this concept.

>> > When run at 1024x768, it squishes the picture vertically, leaving
>> > black bars on the top and bottom. The pre-set aspect ratio #3 will
>> > made and HD signal picture fill the screen without any apparent
>> > cropping or stretching. But on SD signals, the pictures are >> > stretched
>> > horizontally to fill the screen on ALL aspect ratios. So that's a
>> > problem, but it's also a problem that I can't actually use any of >> > the
>> > different aspect ratio modes for their intended purpose (zooming in >> > on
>> > letterboxed stuff, progressive stretching of SD, etc.).

>> > So, am I missing something, or is it really and truly just not
>> > supported? Yes, I could run my computer at 1360x768 and let my tv
>> > rescale it back to 1024x768. But when I do that, you can tell that
>> > the HD signal loses some of it's eye-popping quality. It's also an
>> > issue with some PAL mpegs I have from England. In other media
>> > players, I have a preset aspect ratio fixer for them that I can just
>> > engage by pressing a button. But with MCE I'm just out of luck.

>> > I'm going to have to ditch Media Center if this issue cannot be
>> > solved. And that's a shame because I think it is otherwise very >> > cool
>> > software and was a selling point for the PC I bought.

>> > I'm actually fairly resigned that I'm going to have to do that. But >> > I
>> > guess if there was some place to complain where someone from >> > Microsoft
>> > would actually see this, it might help. Probably not, but who >> > knows.
>> > The sad part is that Windows Media Player supports changing the >> > aspect
>> > ratio to a custom setting!

>> > Any help is appreciated.

>> > --
>> > Jason


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