Widescreen playback needed on OLD machine

[homerjay]

I am here now as I have searched and searched and can find nowhere else to turn. Based on the knowledge and experience of members in the past I am hoping a software solution can be provided to the hardware limitation I am suffering from.

I have a 2nd user pc Compaq Iaq C800 based around an Intel 815e chipset (82815) which I purchased to run under the stairs, download torrents and stream the content to my 32" widescreen LCD.

Everything is peachy except the latest supported drivers for the graphics card only support 4:3 resolutions with a max of 1024x768. The previous driver went up to 1280 but not at 24bit.

I am happy not to watch HD content and I am happy to have to cut the vertical resolution down to match the 1024 or 1280 width if needed so....

Is there a software player that will compensate correctly for this or is there any software out there that can be used to add non standard resolutions to old kit?

Thanks

HJ

[legoman666]

VLC can change the aspect ratios of video files on the fly. You can also add custom aspect ratios in case you need something weird. You can also set the default aspect ratio to anything you please.

On the other hand, just reinstall the old drivers? Was there any reason to isntall the new ones? Were you having stability issues?

[Blue_MiSfit]

Grab a real video card :)

You will get much better image quality and proper HD support.

~Misfit

[squid_80]

Grab a real video card :)
It's a Compaq - typically don't support any additional hardware.

I'm looking into doing the same thing at the moment, got a 7" widescreen LCD in my car and a compaq in the back. The LCD has a native resolution of 800x480. If I succeed I'll let you know.

[homerjay]

thanks for replies, to confirm.

the native resolutions under either version of the drivers did not include any widescreen options.

there is no graphics card update option for this machine.

i have been using vlc but am unsure what to set it as. by way of an example, a widescreen avi will play back full screen if put onto a dvd and played through a standalone player but when played via the pc there is a border at the top and bottom.
i thought that as the desktop was being stretched from 4:3 to 16:9 that if i set the playback to 4:3 this would resolve but the picture is stretched too far vertically so im guessing i have also lost some of the image.

thanks for the info squidy, even 800x480 would be acceptable although 1024x???? would be better ;) is 480 right for the vertical btw?

[legoman666]

setting the playback to 4:3 if the desktop IS 4:3 is essentially doing nothing. The computer has no idea what the aspect ratio of the TV is.

The computer is outputting a 4:3 ratio. The TV is displaying it as 16:9. You need to set VLC to output at the correct ratio so that when the TV stretches it, it stretches it to the "proper" AR. I used to have the same problem with the VGA input on my HDTV. I belive the correct ratio to set VLC to is 5:4 but it's been a while since I had to do this, so I might be wrong.

[homerjay]

cheers bud, will give that a go :)

[homerjay]

Has anyone ever seen these btw? wondering if they are essentially an external gfx card http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.4838
will have to try find some more info ....

[homerjay]

scratch that, resolution and colour depth is poor, no widescreen and not suitable for video playback.

[homerjay]

setting the playback to 4:3 if the desktop IS 4:3 is essentially doing nothing. The computer has no idea what the aspect ratio of the TV is.

The computer is outputting a 4:3 ratio. The TV is displaying it as 16:9. You need to set VLC to output at the correct ratio so that when the TV stretches it, it stretches it to the "proper" AR. I used to have the same problem with the VGA input on my HDTV. I belive the correct ratio to set VLC to is 5:4 but it's been a while since I had to do this, so I might be wrong.

5:4 was not a good choice. I downloaded smplayer out of curiosity and had a fiddle about with that too. Cant seem to find an accurate default.

Im sure there must me a genious on here that can provide an accurate ratio for 1024x768 being scaled to fit on a 16:9 LCD with default res of 1360x768.
:thanks:

[Blue_MiSfit]

Try PowerStrip. It might be able to force different resolutions...


~MiSfit

[legoman666]

5:4 was not a good choice. I downloaded smplayer out of curiosity and had a fiddle about with that too. Cant seem to find an accurate default.

Im sure there must me a genious on here that can provide an accurate ratio for 1024x768 being scaled to fit on a 16:9 LCD with default res of 1360x768.
:thanks:

hmmm. try 85/64.

1360/1024 = 1.328125 = 85/64. Or if that looks completely wrong, I might have it backwards, so try 65/84.

[setarip_old]

@homerjay

Hi!a widescreen avi will play back full screen if put onto a dvd and played through a standalone playerIf it's being played back fullscreen, without black borders, on a conventional 4:3 television (not a widescreen TV), look carefullyand I'm sure you'll realize that either parts of the image have been cropped or the image is vertically stretched. but when played via the pc there is a border at the top and bottom.That's as it should be on a 4:3 monitor (or TV), so that no part of the image is cropped or distorted...

[homerjay]

sorry setarip_old you got the wrong end of the stick, the lcd is widescreen.
the pc can only provide 4:3 resolutions.
when burn a file to disc to play on an external dvd it fills the widescreen lcd.
when play the file from pc there are black borders at 16:9
and image is stretched vertically at 4:3

thanks Legoman666 - will try both LOL

Powerstrip didnt help when I tried it Blue_MiSfit but thanks ;)

[squid_80]

I tried powerstrip too but it didn't like the i82815 and couldn't provide any custom timings. The closest I managed to get was using the intel embedded graphics drivers (google for IEGD_5_1_Windows.zip, that's the last version that supports 82815) and using it to produce a custom driver that supported the resolution/timings that I wanted. Unfortunately the driver turned out to be incompatible with hibernation which is unacceptable. Also you need to know the exact timings of your monitor to be able to put them into the configuration program.

[RaynQuist]

i have been using vlc but am unsure what to set it as. by way of an example, a widescreen avi will play back full screen if put onto a dvd and played through a standalone player but when played via the pc there is a border at the top and bottom.
i thought that as the desktop was being stretched from 4:3 to 16:9 that if i set the playback to 4:3 this would resolve but the picture is stretched too far vertically so im guessing i have also lost some of the image.


I'm confused. I understand that you have 16:9 video and 16:9 LCD but computer only outputs 4:3.

1) You're saying your desktop stretch horizontally to 16:9?
2) And when playing video you have black bars on top and bottom?
3) And the video is still stretched too far vertically?

[foxyshadis]

Setting video playback back to 4:3 only works if you're playing a perfectly 16:9 video, in this case, more likely you have 1.83, 2.15, etc. Some movie ratio. Those will stretch vertically because you're correcting too far.

I don't know of any way of fixing this for good, though, only calculating and changing the AR of each movie as you start it. =\

[squid_80]

I was thinking it could be a new option for ffdshow: Scale by ratio x:y to correct for screen vs desktop resolution.

Edit: Hey wait, what's Process pixel aspect ratio internally do? I can't test at the moment...

[RaynQuist]

If nothing else we can always use ffdshow's avisynth and dynamically AddBorder to make everything 16:9, then resize to 4:3

[homerjay]

I have no idea what that means LOL