Netflix: Picture all stretched out

[TheDROCK]

Whenever I watch a movie from Netflix, the picture is stretched out so the actors look like they are all seven-feet tall. Any idea how to fix this?

[bkdtv]

Most Netflix movies are 16:9 480p. They should fill your entire screen. You might check your TV to see if you have some sort of stretch mode enabled.

If you can't find the stretch mode on your TV, try setting fixed 720p or fixed 1080i under Settings -> Video -> Video Output Format.

[QBiN]

I've noticed this as well and have a workaround.

The Netflix app on Tivo doesn't seem to sense the aspect ratio chosen using the "Aspect" button on the remote or compensate for it in any way. So this is what I've had to do:

1) Ensure your TV's aspect ratio (not the TiVo's) is on "Full" or whatever allows even 4:3 to be shown on the full screen. Do NOT choose Zoom.
2) Choose and briefly watch your Netflix selection. Take note of what the content's aspect appears to be.
3) Go back to "Live TV" and watch something standard def.
4) While in "Live TV" use the TiVo's aspect button to choose the aspect ration that will best frame the Netflix content. For example:
4:3 content -> choose "Panel"
True Widescreen (16:9 or 16:10) -> Choose "Full"
Fake Widescreen (letterbox widescreen within 4:3) -> Choose "Panel" or "Zoom"
5) Go back to and watch your Netflix selection. It should be good now.

This procedure is a PITA, but it's the only I know to manually correct for the Netflix app's lack of intelligence. Nonetheless, I hope either TiVo or Netflix fix that bug soon.

[hillstones]

Whenever I watch a movie from Netflix, the picture is stretched out so the actors look like they are all seven-feet tall. Any idea how to fix this?

More info is needed. Do you have a widescreen TV, or a 4:3 standard TV? Check your video settings as previously mentioned to set them according to the type of TV you have connected. I think you mean to say the picture is compressed so the actors look skinny and tall. If a 4:3 image is stretched to fill a Widescreen TV, the actors look short and wide. If a 16:9 image is compressed to fill a 4:3 TV, the actors look tall and skinny.

When I rented a movie from Amazon long ago, the video was a non-anamorphic widescreen image. That type of image would look fine on a 4:3 TV, but not on a Widescreen TV. On a widescreen TV, the image was stretched wide. I had to change the aspect ratio on my TV to '4:3 Expanded' to fill the screen, and maintain most of the correct human proportion.

I haven't downloaded anything from Amazon in months, and I don't subscribe to NetFlix, so I don't know what they are pushing out these days.

[filburtaj]

I had that problem - it wasn't even an anamorphic scaling problem. The problem occurred when trying to play a 2.20:1 or 2.35:1 aspect ratio non-HD Netflix film on my 16:9 screen. Tivo sent the signal to my TV as 480P with the image expanded to the full height and width of the screen. When my TV applied a "widescreen" aspect ratio to the image, it stretched it to the full width of the screen, but did not letterbox the top and bottom appropriately to restore the original aspect ratio.

To fix the problem, I had to change the TiVo output format to be "1080P fixed". This isn't ideal since I think my TV does a better job scaling SD content, but it gets all the Netflix films to display in the correct aspect ratio with appropriate letterboxing. I also found that it made the menus (especially the Netflix menus) much more responsive (bonus!).

Phil

[shady]

I've noticed this as well and have a workaround.

The Netflix app on Tivo doesn't seem to sense the aspect ratio chosen using the "Aspect" button on the remote or compensate for it in any way. So this is what I've had to do:

1) Ensure your TV's aspect ratio (not the TiVo's) is on "Full" or whatever allows even 4:3 to be shown on the full screen. Do NOT choose Zoom.
2) Choose and briefly watch your Netflix selection. Take note of what the content's aspect appears to be.
3) Go back to "Live TV" and watch something standard def.
4) While in "Live TV" use the TiVo's aspect button to choose the aspect ration that will best frame the Netflix content. For example:
4:3 content -> choose "Panel"
True Widescreen (16:9 or 16:10) -> Choose "Full"
Fake Widescreen (letterbox widescreen within 4:3) -> Choose "Panel" or "Zoom"
5) Go back to and watch your Netflix selection. It should be good now.

This procedure is a PITA, but it's the only I know to manually correct for the Netflix app's lack of intelligence. Nonetheless, I hope either TiVo or Netflix fix that bug soon.

This is the procedure that I use.

[tombonneau]

I noticed this as well when I tried to watch Return of the Pink Panther. I switched over to my Roku and it was scaled perfectly. I've since just used my Roku as default for Netflix viewing. Easier to just switch my TV input anyway vs. navigate through 3-4 pages on TiVo.

[MichaelJHuman]

I was watching THX 1138. It did not look quite right. It's aspect ratio looks to be 2.35:1. I don't understand what it looks like when it comes across from Netflix. I did not like 2.35:1 was a supported aspect ratio, so you would think the movie has to have letterboxing to fit in a 16:9 frame, and anamorphically treated with letterboxing for a 4:3 frame.

In any, case, Tivo was set to tell it the TV was 16:9, and set to 1080i output.

In the Tivo's aspect mode full, Netflix showed what looked to be the full frame with no letterboxing, thus vertical stretching.

In panel mode, which would normally be used to pillar box a 4:3 signal, it adds letterboxing and the picture appears correct.

I find it odd to think panel mode fixes it.

What I find most odd is why Tivo full aspect mode is wrong. That would require the movie is stored as 2.35:1 in a file, which I did not think MPEG allowed for*, or that Tivo was cropped the image vertically.

* Of course, the Netflix files would not have to be in MPEG, but what else would they use?

[MichaelJHuman]

I watched Thunderbolt, and it was obviously in the wrong aspect ratio. I redeemed a XBox live gold card I had, and what do you know, it looks right on XBox 360 (the 360 adds the letterboxing.)

I tried lots of combinations of settings on the Tivo, and it did not properly add letterboxing.

I have to think Tivo needs to fix their Netflix feature to properly display movies.

[bkdtv]

Did you make sure your TiVo was set to panel aspect mode? If it isn't, you won't get the right aspect ratio.

[MichaelJHuman]

I was able to get another movie to display properly using panel mode. I am not sure why, because I thought panel mode was for displaying 4:3 signals with pillars on a widescreen TV. But it did seem to work.

The same trick did not work for Thunderbolt.

[jcthorne]

The current Tivo software has a documented bug displaying proper aspect ratio of 720p material encoded via h264. If its not full frame, it will not display correctly. Wonder if Netflix is running into that, I know some amazon material does. I have to encode my own uploads to tivo to work around it.

[MichaelJHuman]

Here was another odd one. A movie was clipped off at the bottom (Cashback.) It actually looked like it was shifted down! The opening titles which looked as if they should have been centered were not centered. It's correct when streamed on my macbook.

FYI - Panel mode does not fix this one either.

Netflix/Tivo is sure odd sometimes. I find it a bit annoyed about the number of problems.

Movies that apparently require using the aspect button, which seems wrong - the manual says it's for 4:3 movies on 16:9 screens and vice-versa.

The fact that you can't use the aspect button which watching these movies which require using the aspect button.

And movies which don't display correctly no matter what.

[mattack]

I have a 4:3 TV(*), and the Aspect is set to Panel (though I have chosen the others).

On both my S3 & TivoHD, The IT Crowd is stretched vertically. Enough that it's not watchable. (But for example, at least the first streamable episode of S9 of Top Gear is letterboxing correctly, and the couple of episodes of Better Off Ted I watched showed up at the correct aspect ratio.)

Is this simply the exact same problem as described above, and there's no workaround (other than getting another netflix streaming device -- sigh)???

(*) I got them via the previous lifetime transfer offers. I have to get a house first to fit a HDTV into.. heh.