Scale video for widescreen

[Traal]

As far as I know, broadcast non-HD video is always either 4:3 or letterboxed.

When the video is 4:3, I put my widescreen TV into "Just" mode (also called "Wide Zoom" mode) so the picture fills the screen without making the stretching too noticeable. (Other people might use the "Normal" mode to add gray or black bars on the sides of the screen, or the "14:9" mode to zoom in a little without cutting too much off of the top and bottom of the picture.)

When the video is letterboxed, I'll put my TV into "Zoom" mode to get rid of the bars at the top and bottom of the screen.

But switching between the two modes is a hassle. What TiVo could do is scale the video automatically for me, based on my preferences, my TV's shape (widescreen or normal), and the shape of the video picture.

TiVo would either need better guide data that indicates whether the video is 4:3 or letterboxed, or it might be able to to detect it automatically. And/or TiVo could harness the collective power of its users by letting people somehow tell TiVo whether the program is/was 4:3 or letterboxed.

[Dan203]

The Series 3 units has a built in "Aspect" feature that can be switched between Wide, Full and Zoom on the TiVo itself without the need to mess with the TV controls.

Dan

[Traal]

Does it do this automatically, or does the user still have to hit a button?

[Dan203]

You have to hit a button. But there are only 3 modes and it cycles through them very quickly. I don't think guide data is available for them to make the feature automatic.

Dan

[Traal]

I don't think guide data is available for them to make the feature automatic.

It probably isn't, at least not right now. But audio CDs don't have artist or title information stored in them, yet when I put a CD into my computer, Windows Media Player even knows the names of all the songs on the CD. If Microsoft can do that, I'm sure TiVo could come up with a way to supplement the guide data with information about whether each program is letterboxed.

[Dan203]

That CD magic works by using a open source database which uses the number, length and layout of the tracks to catalog CDs. Unfortunately TiVo doesn't even have that much information to work with. All they have to work with is an analog video stream, and they don't have nearly enough hourse power to analyze the video content and determin if it's letterboxed or not. The ONLY way TiVo could do this is if there was some indication of the format in the guide data. And for that to happen the content owner would have to reliably report that information to Tribune Media Services, which in turn would put it into the data which they supply to TiVo. This could happen some day, but as of right now it's not there so the bets they can do is offer a button.

Dan

[Traal]

That CD magic works by using a open source database which uses the number, length and layout of the tracks to catalog CDs. Unfortunately TiVo doesn't even have that much information to work with.
Originally, someone else didn't have that much information to work with, either. So they created that CD database.

If TiVo wanted to create their own database like that, they wouldn't even have to start from scratch. IMDB contains aspect ratio information on a lot of programs. Look here (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118480/technical) for an example.