HDR 2000T 16:9 / 4:3 Aspect Ratio Woes

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HDR 2000T 16:9 / 4:3 Aspect Ratio Woes

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grahamlthompson

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Recorded content on HDR FOX T2 and using TV recording capability.

Strangely I have the opposire results. The Panny recording displays in the correct aspect ratio with the broad (and equal) black bars either side. The HDR FOX T2 stretches the image horizontally but does not completely eliminate the black borders (the left one is thicker than the right).

The Panny lacks the trick play capability so was near impossible to get the exact same frame, however they are close enough to clearly show the horizontal distortion.

The two photographs were resized to 1920 pixels horizontally and the black bars filled in black (to eliminate the distracting reflections from the Pannys rather shiny screen).

They were combined into 1 image. The effect on Robert Hardys waistline can clearly be seen on the photo from the HDR FOX T2. Also check out the DRAMA in the channel dog.

Details of the recording file (544 x 576 yuk)

General
ID : 12294 (0x3006)
Complete name : C:\UserData\TVMovies\All Creatures Great and Small_20150317_1024.ts
Format : BDAV
Format/Info : Blu-ray Video
File size : 45.2 MiB
Duration : 2mn 6s
Overall bit rate mode : Variable
Overall bit rate : 2 983 Kbps

Video
ID : 6609 (0x19D1)
Menu ID : 16208 (0x3F50)
Format : MPEG Video
Format version : Version 2
Format profile : Main@Main
Format settings, BVOP : Yes
Format settings, Matrix : Custom
Format settings, GOP : Variable
Codec ID : 2
Duration : 2mn 6s
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 2 726 Kbps
Maximum bit rate : 15.0 Mbps
Width : 544 pixels
Height : 576 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 4:3
Active Format Description : Pillarbox 4:3 image
Frame rate : 25.000 fps
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Interlaced
Scan order : Top Field First
Compression mode : Lossy
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.348
Stream size : 40.9 MiB (91%)

Audio
ID : 6610 (0x19D2)
Menu ID : 16208 (0x3F50)
Format : MPEG Audio
Format version : Version 1
Format profile : Layer 2
Mode : Joint stereo
Codec ID : 3
Duration : 2mn 6s
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 128 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Compression mode : Lossy
Delay relative to video : -971ms
Stream size : 1.94 MiB (4%)
Language : English

Text
ID : 6614 (0x19D6)
Menu ID : 16208 (0x3F50)
Format : DVB Subtitle
Codec ID : 6
Duration : 2mn 1s
Delay relative to video : 1s 301ms
Language : English

Menu
ID : 421 (0x1A5)
Menu ID : 16208 (0x3F50)
Duration : 2mn 6s
List : 6609 (0x19D1) (MPEG Video) / 6610 (0x19D2) (MPEG Audio, English) / 6611 (0x19D3) (MPEG Audio) / 6614 (0x19D6) (DVB Subtitle, English)
Language : / English / / English
Service name : Drama
Service type : digital television
UTC 2015-03-17 10:00:00 : en:All Creatures Great and Small / en:Home and Away: Tears and laughter at the 1930s country practice that caters for the real animals in the community. James upsets the greyhound owners at the local dogtrack. [S] / user defined / / 01:00:00 / Running
UTC 2015-03-23 09:00:00 : en:Born and Bred / en:The Best Man: EastEnders and Holby City star Michael French teams up with Likely Lad James Bolam in the drama series about father-and-son doctors set in a 1950s Lancashire village. [S] / user defined / / 01:00:00 /
UTC 2015-03-23 10:00:00 : en:All Creatures Great and Small / en:Big Steps and Little Uns: A voyage back through time to a more innocent age to meet the Yorkshire vets. Siegfried, James and Tristan deal with domestic disharmony in their own ways. [S] / user defined / / 01:00:00 /
UTC 2015-03-23 11:00:00 : en:The Bill / en:Boomerang Copper: Part Two: The sound of the sirens signals another visit to Sun Hill. Luke is horrified when an old face returns - who could it be? And Sheelagh is kidnapped. [S] / user defined / / 01:00:00 /
Attachments
1. 4_3on16_9.jpg (628.5 KB, 7 downloads) 9 years old
| Tue 17 Mar 2015 11:09:40 #21 |
Faust

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-gonzo- - 1 hour ago »
'Overscan' is the portion of picture that's outside of the visible screen on the standard TV setup so is lost (could be anything from a few mm to an inch or more), there are other settings to allow you to lose even more of the available picture also. Most HD TVs also have a 'Screen Fit' (maybe called something else on different brands) option so that all available pixels of whatever your watching are within the visible screen.

Ah! now it's coming back to me. I think mine is turned on as when I had it off I sometimes had a 'ragged' edge to the picture which I found annoying.

Your attachments - well blow me! that's the opposite of what my Panasonic does. I get a perfectly filled picture, though as you rightly comment probably stretched.

It would be interesting to see if you got the same results by watching the 'live' broadcast (17:00) through the Panasonic's own tuner rather than a recording.

| Tue 17 Mar 2015 11:44:46 #22 |
damian

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My Toshiba tv has 10 different settings for aspect, a so called 'super live 2' setting will zoom and fill a 4:3 picture onto a 16:9 screen. On a previous Thomson 16:9 crt I had the option to zoom and also physically move the picture up or down which was useful at times on some subtitled cinemascope films. Amorphic, in theory, is best used with projectors that have very expensive amorphic lenses, although it is an extra tool in the aspect toolbox.

I personally prefer to keep everything original, I've seen other tv's set to auto where the resolution and aspect are continually jumping around particulary around adverts or presumably a mix of 4:3/16:9 content which I find very disconcerting to watch, although I understand the frustration of 4:3 black bars especially if broadcasters are padding a 4:3 image to make it effectively a fixed 16:9. The SD/HD differences over hdmi information was interesting. I don't think an 'auto' can be made to work 100% reliably, there's always going to be a compromise.

| Tue 17 Mar 2015 11:47:07 #23 |
grahamlthompson

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Faust - 44 minutes ago »

-gonzo- - 1 hour ago »
'Overscan' is the portion of picture that's outside of the visible screen on the standard TV setup so is lost (could be anything from a few mm to an inch or more), there are other settings to allow you to lose even more of the available picture also. Most HD TVs also have a 'Screen Fit' (maybe called something else on different brands) option so that all available pixels of whatever your watching are within the visible screen.

Ah! now it's coming back to me. I think mine is turned on as when I had it off I sometimes had a 'ragged' edge to the picture which I found annoying.
Your attachments - well blow me! that's the opposite of what my Panasonic does. I get a perfectly filled picture, though as you rightly comment probably stretched.
It would be interesting to see if you got the same results by watching the 'live' broadcast (17:00) through the Panasonic's own tuner rather than a recording.

Same live, I pressed recording while watching the channel.Only way to photograph a similar frame.

| Tue 17 Mar 2015 12:30:32 #24 |
JamesB

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damian - 45 minutes ago »
My Toshiba tv has 10 different settings for aspect, a so called 'super live 2' setting will zoom and fill a 4:3 picture onto a 16:9 screen. On a previous Thomson 16:9 crt I had the option to zoom and also physically move the picture up or down which was useful at times on some subtitled cinemascope films. Amorphic, in theory, is best used with projectors that have very expensive amorphic lenses, although it is an extra tool in the aspect toolbox.
I personally prefer to keep everything original, I've seen other tv's set to auto where the resolution and aspect are continually jumping around particulary around adverts or presumably a mix of 4:3/16:9 content which I find very disconcerting to watch, although I understand the frustration of 4:3 black bars especially if broadcasters are padding a 4:3 image to make it effectively a fixed 16:9. The SD/HD differences over hdmi information was interesting. I don't think an 'auto' can be made to work 100% reliably, there's always going to be a compromise.

The YouView boxes also indulge in the "4:3 locked into 16:9" trick - for all OTA channels. Which is very frustrating for those users who like old programmes but hate black bars.

| Tue 17 Mar 2015 12:31:29 #25 |
Faust

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grahamlthompson - 34 minutes ago »

Faust - 44 minutes ago »

-gonzo- - 1 hour ago »
'Overscan' is the portion of picture that's outside of the visible screen on the standard TV setup so is lost (could be anything from a few mm to an inch or more), there are other settings to allow you to lose even more of the available picture also. Most HD TVs also have a 'Screen Fit' (maybe called something else on different brands) option so that all available pixels of whatever your watching are within the visible screen.

Ah! now it's coming back to me. I think mine is turned on as when I had it off I sometimes had a 'ragged' edge to the picture which I found annoying.
Your attachments - well blow me! that's the opposite of what my Panasonic does. I get a perfectly filled picture, though as you rightly comment probably stretched.
It would be interesting to see if you got the same results by watching the 'live' broadcast (17:00) through the Panasonic's own tuner rather than a recording.

Same live, I pressed recording while watching the channel.Only way to photograph a similar frame.

Update to my update - I have just been watching 'The Bill' on Drama (experiment only) on the Panasonic TV. As usual full screen albeit definitely stretched. I then went back into the Panasonic's aspect ratio settings and noticed that it is actually set to 16.9 not Auto as I previously thought.

As soon as I selected Auto the picture reverted to 4.3 with the vertical black bars either side. So that is the mystery solved then Graham, mine is set to 16.9 whereas I assume your's will be on Auto.

With overscan set to off there is definitely a visible edge to the picture on my TV?

Sadly, the only way to overcome the black bars issue with the 2000T is to manually go into preferences and select 4.3 and Auto in order to get a full screen image with old material. However, the Humax doesn't appear to handle the material quite as well as the Panasonic as even then the material seems over-stretched.

Once you have viewed the programme you then have to change the settings back for 16.9 as if you don't then those pictures are wrongly displayed. An altogether unsatisfactory arrangement.

If I add these issues to the issues of not playing nicely with my other Panasonic PVR over DLNA then I do wish I had made an alternative purchasing decision.

| Tue 17 Mar 2015 13:17:41 #26 |
grahamlthompson

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Posts: 14,442
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Faust - 6 minutes ago »

grahamlthompson - 34 minutes ago »

Faust - 44 minutes ago »

-gonzo- - 1 hour ago »
'Overscan' is the portion of picture that's outside of the visible screen on the standard TV setup so is lost (could be anything from a few mm to an inch or more), there are other settings to allow you to lose even more of the available picture also. Most HD TVs also have a 'Screen Fit' (maybe called something else on different brands) option so that all available pixels of whatever your watching are within the visible screen.

Ah! now it's coming back to me. I think mine is turned on as when I had it off I sometimes had a 'ragged' edge to the picture which I found annoying.
Your attachments - well blow me! that's the opposite of what my Panasonic does. I get a perfectly filled picture, though as you rightly comment probably stretched.
It would be interesting to see if you got the same results by watching the 'live' broadcast (17:00) through the Panasonic's own tuner rather than a recording.

Same live, I pressed recording while watching the channel.Only way to photograph a similar frame.

Update to my update - I have just been watching 'The Bill' on Drama (experiment only) on the Panasonic TV. As usual full screen albeit definitely stretched. I then went back into the Panasonic's aspect ratio settings and noticed that it is actually set to 16.9 not Auto as I previously thought.
As soon as I selected Auto the picture reverted to 4.3 with the vertical black bars either side. So that is the mystery solved then Graham, mine is set to 16.9 whereas I assume your's will be on Auto.
With overscan set to off there is definitely a visible edge to the picture on my TV?
Sadly, the only way to overcome the black bars issue with the 2000T is to manually go into preferences and select 4.3 and Auto in order to get a full screen image with old material. However, the Humax doesn't appear to handle the material quite as well as the Panasonic as even then the material seems over-stretched.
Once you have viewed the programme you then have to change the settings back for 16.9 as if you don't then those pictures are wrongly displayed. An altogether unsatisfactory arrangement.
If I add these issues to the issues of not playing nicely with my other Panasonic PVR over DLNA then I do wish I had made an alternative purchasing decision.

There's no Auto option.

16:9 overscan off/on
H-Size H-Size 1/H-Size-2 Says switches over horizontal scanning size. Mine is set to 1. 2 may stretch to full width. I will check next time some 4:3 available
Zoom adjustments (greyed out) Says Adjusts the vertical position and size when the aspect is set to just and zoom modes

-just V-Size max is 3
-Zoom V-Size max is 15

So far can't find a aspect control at all.

Selecting a new channel brings up a on screen message

Auto
16:9 or 4:3.

Struggling to find a 4:3 picture to play with

EDIT

Changing H size had no effect on playback of original 4:3 recording.

| Tue 17 Mar 2015 13:37:55 #27 |
-gonzo-

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Faust - 2 hours ago »

Ah! now it's coming back to me. I think mine is turned on as when I had it off I sometimes had a 'ragged' edge to the picture which I found annoying.
.

Yeah you get that with some older programs that are broadcast as back in the 4:3 TV days programs had all sorts of rubbish attached the edges, but as pretty much all 4:3 TVs overscanned the picture it wasn't something anyone ever noticed until HD sets came along with 1:1 pixel mapping.

As for black side bars, I used to have to see everything fill the screen, but I've sort of got used to seeing 4:3 as 4:3 as that's what you get with any 4:3 Blu-ray's and any 4:3 content on Netflix and it just doesn't bother me anymore.

| Tue 17 Mar 2015 14:00:34 #28 |
Faust

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Graham, on the Panasonic remote if you select the aspect button is the first in the list not Auto? On mine it is Auto then 16.9, 14.9, Just, 4.3 and Zoom.

I have seen that H size 1 and 2 in menu but it doesn't appear to do much that I can see. I have mine set to 1 also.

| Tue 17 Mar 2015 15:08:20 #29 |
grahamlthompson

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Faust - 6 minutes ago »
Graham, on the Panasonic remote if you select the aspect button is the first in the list not Auto? On mine it is Auto then 16.9, 14.9, Just, 4.3 and Zoom.
I have seen that H size 1 and 2 in menu but it doesn't appear to do much that I can see. I have mine set to 1 also.

Was looking in the menus not on the remote. The aspect ratio switching is a button on the remote control

Options are

Auto
16:9
14:9
4:3
Zoom
4:3 Full
Sidecut Just
Sidecut Zoom

Auto plays 4:3 Just stretches to fill screen.

| Tue 17 Mar 2015 15:20:21 #30 |