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Play movies on a widescreen TV from a PowerBook
Authored by: sfgecko on May 05, '06 11:40:48AM

My 4 year old 16:9 Panasonic CRT has 4 picture modes when using S-video: Full, Just, 4:3, Zoom.

My external display resolution is set to 1024x768. Overscan option in display preferences is also checked.

When watching a matted (non-anamorphic) 16:9 video, I set my TV's picture mode to Zoom. A matted 16:9 picture will fit the full frame of the TV in Zoom mode.

When watching a 4:3 video, I set my TV's picture mode to 4:3. Proper AR with black bars on the left/right sides.

Keep in mind that widescreen DivX/XviD videos that you download off the web are usually NOT anamorphic (they're matted), unlike anamorphic widescreen DVD's e.g. a 16:9 AR squeezed into a 720x480 frame.

What this hint is describing is a way for you to tell VLC to make a matted picture anamorphic into a 4:3 frame so that when you output it to a 16:9 TV in "Full" picture mode, it will display the AR correctly. However, the videos will not look right on your Powerbook's LCD, so you will need to reset the pixel aspect ratio back to 0 if you want to watch on your Pbook's LCD.

If you watch videos mostly on your widescreen TV using VLC and S-video, then this hint saves you the trouble of flipping between the TV's 4:3 and Zoom picture modes, or if your TV doesn't have those modes.



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