When I point Mplay at a DVD folder set mounted on my PC, it seems to always play it in widescreen, even if the content is standard 4:3.

I know we've all invested heavily in nice widescreen sets, but most content is still in fullscreen, like it or not. How do I get Mplay to properly display fullscreen?

Thanks,
Nathan

ngregory wrote:

When I point Mplay at a DVD folder set mounted on my PC, it seems to always play it in widescreen, even if the content is standard 4:3.

I know we've all invested heavily in nice widescreen sets, but most content is still in fullscreen, like it or not. How do I get Mplay to properly display fullscreen?

Thanks,
Nathan

http://www.permanence.com/mplay/faq.html#zoom

TheEndless

Thanks for the response. Unfortunately, no cigar. None of them look right on some files.

The most troublesome files are letterbox files I recorded off a movie channel. They are 4:3 with bars at the top and bottom as is common. When I burn the DVD image to a DVD-R and play it on my $39 DVD player, it looks just fine, zoomed appropriately to fit on my 16:9 display.

However, the HD1000/MPlay system always looks stretched or squashed, no matter what option I pick, even when the picture nominally fills the screen. Further, the $39 DVD player picks the correct display mode automatically, and does not require navigating thru multiple menus.

While studying the FAQ I notice a complete lack of support for subtitles. Hadn't gotten far enough to try that yet. But that's one more point where the HD1000/MPlay combination is quite a bit inferior to that $39 DVD player.

I don't mean to knock your efforts. MPlay is an awesome application, and I don't doubt that one day you will finish it and it will work well.

Keep at it.

Nathan

I've had no problems at all playing back any files using Mplay. I just flip through the aspect ratios until I find the one that looks right. At the very minimum you should see the right ratio when the picture is very small and centered in the middle of the screen (black bars all the way around). If you're not getting that result then perhaps it has something to do without the recorded content?? I don't know...

Perhaps there is some sort of change in the aspect ratio during the burning process when you're transferring it to a DVD.

Just throwing blind darts here...

All I know is there has never been a file that hasn't displayed properly for me using Mplay.

ngregory wrote:

I don't mean to knock your efforts. MPlay is an awesome application, and I don't doubt that one day you will finish it and it will work well.

Keep at it.

Nathan

Finished? What else do you want MPlay to do that is allowed by the Roku API and isn't there yet? All the sorts of things people keep asking MPlay to do, Endless and Marcello have explained ad naseum that the API's don't expose the capability (DVD nav, subtitles, etc.) so nothing MPlay can do about it. Some things (like DTS) the hardware isn't capable of supporting.

MPlay's the best thing to ever happen to the Photobridge. I be willing to bet 90+% of PB's would be doorstops without MPlay. And it's pretty well 'finished' other than maybe some minor tweaks.

ngregory wrote:

How do I get Mplay to properly display fullscreen?

Thanks,
Nathan

In your PB's setup, have you done a screen adjustment (with the big circle in the middle of screen)? Actually measured with a tape that veritcal and horizontal dimension of that circle are identical? Nothing MPlay can do if that screen setup aspect isn't perfectly equal.

I've got some funky stuf I play back, and the only things MPlay has ever not been able to correct for me are stuff that was PAL sourced.

that´s correct. For PAL source , mplay+rokuhd1000 is unusable!
It's a great pity.

dgburns wrote:

MPlay's the best thing to ever happen to the Photobridge. I be willing to bet 90+% of PB's would be doorstops without MPlay. And it's pretty well 'finished' other than maybe some minor tweaks.

Aside from when guests are over and the slideshows are running, I do two things - play movies on mplay, and check the weather maps. Once they added the fixTS option, it was feature complete for my needs.

Letterbox (ie, fake widescreen) recordings are problematic in general. You don't get back the lost resolution and the aspect ratio isn't a constant, so solutions are hard to come by.