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View Full Version : TTG S3 - Widescreen XVID

AnonymousTroll
11-02-2007, 04:41 PM
I transfered a widescreen XVID video over to my Tivo, but the Tivo insists on playing it as if it was 4:3. Is there anything that I can do to get the Tivo to play it in 16:9?
montz
11-02-2007, 04:51 PM
Is the video really 16:9? Or is it really a 4:3 video that includes letter-boxing? See if you can find the Width/Height ratio of pixels of the video and make sure it's 16:9.

Really the easier way to tell this is by viewing the video on your computer and seeing if you can play with the size of the window and get the boxes on top and bottom to go away completely. If so, the video is really 16:9, if not, it's probably 4:3. I hope that wasn't too confusing.
AnonymousTroll
11-02-2007, 04:53 PM
It's really 16:9 video. 624x352.

The Tivo is letterboxing it into width of a 4:3 program.
wmcbrine
11-02-2007, 05:08 PM
How did you transfer it? pyTivo seems to do a semi-decent job of getting the aspect ratio right.

If you manually reencode it to MPEG-2 before transferring it, you should be able to control the AR.
AnonymousTroll
11-02-2007, 05:17 PM
I just brought it over using TivoToGo Plus

I was hoping to bring my entire library of archived video online with TivoToGo. I'm really enjoying this so far because the files stream to the Tivo faster than they play, so there is zero waiting time to play. I can watch them, but it would be fantastic if it would use my entire TV screen.

Recoding to MPEG2 isn't really an option. It would take me about 10 years and 10 terabytes of storage :)
wmcbrine
11-02-2007, 05:28 PM
Tivo Desktop Plus is already reencoding to MPEG-2 (since it's the only format the Tivo can handle); it just does it on the fly. You can do one file at a time, transfer it, and delete it when you're done. And if you want to automate that, well, try pyTivo, or maybe TivoDotNet.

P.S. You know about the "Aspect" button on the remote, right? I'd still suggest getting it transferred over as 16:9, because you'll get more resolution out of it; but if you just want to fill your screen, set the Aspect to Zoom.
AnonymousTroll
11-02-2007, 05:35 PM
Aspect button does nothing on my TV. Always thought that was because of the HDMI connection.

Good information that TTG is doing a transcode to MPEG2. Wasn't aware of that.

Anyway to get TTG to transcode at the correct aspect ratio?

pyTivo seems to be the only thing that handles the ARs correctly. I guess I'll stick with it for now...