View Full Version : Video Selection in OSD (normal, stretched, etc)
raymondh
2007-11-16, 03:19
What setting do I use for playback of videos? I'm assuming "normal" is what it should be set at. When I use "original" the video is pretty small.
this is not a question we can answer for you. It varies depending on the material you are playing back. Original displays the file at its original dimensions, un-resized. Generally speaking, that won't fill your display. I personally run just about everything at "Custom". this seems to re-size the image while keeping aspect ratio intact. It blows up the video until either the vertical OR horizontal axis is full, so you generally end up with black bars either at the top & bottom or the left & right, depending on the material and your display.
raymondh
2007-11-16, 04:03
I have a 46 inch HDTV and I'm trying to get the best image. Most of my videos are DVD .iso files from my collection. On original, it's a small image in the center of the screen. I've read that sometimes it's best to let the TV upres but I'm not sure this is the same thing. When I select normal it fills the screen and doesn't appear to crop anything.
jmarshall
2007-11-16, 05:20
Normal is what you should use. XBMC does the scaling.
I Mostly use "Normal" as well, but sometimes the black bars are way too wide and I try "Original" as it does not seem to modify the image. Most of the movies I try with "Original" reduces the width of the black bars, but NOT always.
What I can't understand is why XBMC has wider black bars than my stand-alone DVD player. I'm pretty sure I have the overscan set-up correctly - and I certainly don't want to stretch/modify the original image - meaning I want to keep the O.A.Ratio.
jmarshall
2007-11-16, 07:11
If you setup overscan in XBMC in any way then it will be different than a dvd player which has no facility for that.
I personally don't calibrate at all - my TV doesn't have huge amounts of overscan (maybe 20 pixels) and I certainly don't care if I lose that amount - particularly as DVDs usually have overscan compensated for already anyway.
raymondh
2007-11-16, 07:50
So why do my DVD rips look so small when I select original? I'm not encoding them.
jmarshall
2007-11-16, 10:47
Because you are running a higher resolution than the DVD resolution (720p or whatever)
not only that, but many encodes are slightly down-sized in terms of resolution to make the movie fit into a given file size without looking like crap. I know when I do my own I usually choose some arbitrary target file size and then if I can't get the movie to fit into that I do tend to pull the res down a bit.