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MacsGalor · Dec 5, 2003, 03:21 PM

Is there a way to get the DVD Players video options to play back as 16.9 innstead of the letterbox or whatever it is. I have been able to do this with every DVD player I have ever had (not computer DVD players) I would just like to be able to do this with my Powerook.

Axo1ot1 · Dec 5, 2003, 04:36 PM

Originally posted by MacsGalor:
Is there a way to get the DVD Players video options to play back as 16.9 innstead of the letterbox or whatever it is. I have been able to do this with every DVD player I have ever had (not computer DVD players) I would just like to be able to do this with my Powerook.

If I understand correctly you have a widescreen display, and you want to have your DVD playback at as close to full screen as possible rather than having lots of black space around it. This, unfortunately has to do with the encoding of the DVD. Some DVDs are encoded with anamorphic widescreen, which will fit your screen much better, others use letterboxing on a 4:3 frame. With apple's DVD player there isn't anything I know how to do to get around this. You might want to try VLC. I don't remember, but that might be more customizeable.

hoopz · Dec 5, 2003, 05:06 PM

Some DVD players have a mode that essentially zooms in on a letterboxed DVD, so the middle part fills the whole screen (while chopping the edges off, so it's not necessarily a great solution). You can replicate this behavior on a Mac, in kind of a kludgey way. Here's how:

Go to System Preferences, Universal Access. In the Seeing tab, turn on zoom. Now you can zoom in with command-option-plus and zoom out with command-option-minus. Move the mouse to center the image.

tritonus · Jun 6, 2004, 09:12 AM

Originally posted by hoopz:
Some DVD players have a mode that essentially zooms in on a letterboxed DVD, so the middle part fills the whole screen (while chopping the edges off, so it's not necessarily a great solution). You can replicate this behavior on a Mac, in kind of a kludgey way. Here's how:

Go to System Preferences, Universal Access. In the Seeing tab, turn on zoom. Now you can zoom in with command-option-plus and zoom out with command-option-minus. Move the mouse to center the image.

Nice workaround, thanks!

dvdnet · Nov 10, 2004, 08:11 PM

Originally posted by tritonus:
Nice workaround, thanks!

As much as this is a nice workaround it doesn't really support the feature of DVD that people desire.

What needs to be done here is the Display preferences to 'Detect' the display as being 16:9 or even allowing the user to 'flag' it with a checkbox that the display is in fact a 16:9 television. This would then be used by the Apple DVD Player to send the raw 16:9 image off the DVD to this screen so the TV can do the resizing via its own zoom controls rather than DVD Player altering the aspect ratio.

I think that would be a better solution.

I'd also like to add the ability for the DVD Player to send the audio via the Airport Express so we can get 5.1 sound out of the powerbook rather than downscaled 2 channel stereo.

Cheers,
Steve

k_munic · Nov 11, 2004, 04:14 AM

the playback of 16:9 content without letterboxes needs a special "flag" set onto the dvd; this flag is detected by stand-alone dvd players, AND by the apple dvd player(v4.0/MacOsX 10.3.6)! �just tested with some commercial dvds I own�

so, where is the problem?

maybe your dvds are rip offs? or "homebrewn" with iDVD? this app doesn't offer to set this flag, DVDSP does�-

dvdnet · Nov 11, 2004, 09:14 AM

Originally posted by k_munic:
the playback of 16:9 content without letterboxes needs a special "flag" set onto the dvd; this flag is detected by stand-alone dvd players, AND by the apple dvd player(v4.0/MacOsX 10.3.6)! �just tested with some commercial dvds I own�

so, where is the problem?

maybe your dvds are rip offs? or "homebrewn" with iDVD? this app doesn't offer to set this flag, DVDSP does�-

Being a DVD reviewer for the past 5 years, I certainly know about the flags on the DVDs and certainly don't appreciate any accusations about having 'rip-off' DVDs. Is there some sort of insinuation you are trying to make? I was referring to flagging the 'display' in Display Preferences as being a 16:9 television so that when the Apple DVD Player is moved to that screen, it knows to render the image as 16:9 and not letterboxed.

I can't explain it any simpler.

Cheers,
Steve

k_munic · Nov 11, 2004, 10:25 AM

Originally posted by dvdnet:
� Is there some sort of insinuation you are trying to make?

sorry, NO!!!!

I just thought of the technical possibility, that, when you convert a commercial dvd, with set flag 16:9, into another format, this flag is gone; burning a dvd from that file will result in letterboxes�

sorry, no offense meant!!!
english is a foreign language for me, so, details & tone are hard to find correctly - we shall discuss that in German

peace?

Spoffo · Dec 3, 2004, 12:47 AM

VLC lets you manually force the aspect ratio of the playback window to whatever you want. I use it to get widescreen playback of DVD-Rs I burn on a stand-alone recorder (Panasonic) that flags everything as 4:3. A lot of what I burn are 16:9 HD down-converts, and VLC is the only way I've found to get them to play back in proportion on the Mac.

I would think that the same capability woud allow you to create a 16:9 window that woud truly fill a widescreen monitor.

You go to VLC preferences/video, click the "advanced" button and the very last item will let you specify the playback aspect ratio.

dvdnet · Dec 3, 2004, 12:55 AM

Yeah, have found that feature in VLC but would still like that std DVD Player apple bundles to have this feature built in and automatically recognised. It does need to know the external display is 16:9.

If the DVD Player can set the screen to the correct aspect ratio on the 16:9 LCD screen of the powerbook, then all that is needed is to flag the external display as 16:9 in the Display Preferences.

Cheers,
Steve