Some HD channels are 4:3 in a black "frame"

[mathog]

Some HD channels show up as 4:3 rectangles in a black frame. Others are 16:9 wide format. The former looks like the center section of the latter. For instance, in the LA area, the NBC-4LA (4.1) and KVEA-HD (52.1) both have the "black frame" format. Whereas KVEA-SD (52.2) is 4:3 and fills the screen. The contents of the picture seems to be identical for 52.1 and 52.2, one is just scaled down (or up, I guess) from the other. It may be that some other shows on these HD channels are the full 16:9.

These are being displayed via component out on a 4:3 analog TV. Is there some way to make these HD stations automatically zoom up the 4:3 "black framed" images to fill the whole screen? (Some of these do not have a corresponding SD channel, so if we want to watch the show now, it is in the "black framed" format.) If this cannot be done automatically, is there some keyboard shortcut to "fit"? Not manual zoom, which can get it close but always seems to under or overshoot a bit, and needs a bunch of keystrokes, but something that fits exactly to the displayed area.

Thanks.

[ReddogOne]

What I suspect is that the channel is 16:9 but is showing a 4:3 video. So the top and bottom is put on because you have told mythTV you are watching a 4:3 TV but the sides are actually put on by the broadcaster.

Is there some way to make these HD stations automatically zoom up the 4:3 "black framed" images to fill the whole screen?

Now because the mythTV will see these as deliberately drawn black bars as far as its concerned its doing what it should do. So it probably won't help.

I'm guessing your TV is old/cheap/pants so a doubt it will have an auto-zoom on it because I have only seem that on some 16:9 TV because when 4:3 TV where being designed whether a signal is 16:9 or 4:3 wasn't an issue.

Solution. Wait until all TV is wide screen, get a new TV or start coding :(

[Caps18]

I have a Microsoft MCE controller, and about 7 months after I got MythTV setup, I accidentally hit the Windows button which brings up a MythTV menu when watching a show. If you scroll through the options, one of them is to stretch out the video (stretch 16:9) and it will make it fill the frame, but it won't be as good as if the original video was shot in HD.

It one of the reasons why the Feb 17 date should have stood. I was expecting more TV networks to start switching to HD for all of their shows after that.