Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Front Row/DVD Player in widescreen

C

ChiefCT

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Apr 3, 2008
7
0
I have a problem which i am hoping someone can aid me with. At present i am backing up my legally owned dvd's into Video TS folders using 'DVD Shrink'. These then open in front row as if i have placed a dvd into the drive which is brilliant as they play in the widescreen format with no loss of quality.

The problem i am having is with television series such as The Simpsons or Futurama which when i play them in front row or Mac's DVD Player they don't fill my television screen leaving huge black borders to the left and right of the video. Is there any way of making the video fill the screen, because when i put the DVD into my standalone DVD player it fills the entire screen which is what has confused me. I would prefer to edit the front row playback settings if possible because i use this to watch my Movies and Television Shows.

At present i am using a Mac Mini running leopard which is fully updated on a Samsung 32" LCD TV via VGA.

Any help is much appreciated. Unless my only option is to use VLC which i dont really wish to do.
 
When those black bars appear on the side, its an indicator that the source video is not widescreen. The video is simply presented in a way that it was supposed to look like on a 4:3 tv.
 
So is there no available way to force the aspect ratio of the video to fit the screen a bit better without having to revert to the use of VLC?
 
I don't have my Mac in front of me at the moment, but in DVD Player.app there is a Zoom function that will allow you to zoom the video to fill in the sides. This of course will cut off some image at the top and bottom, however.

Your TV, on the other hand, is using a kind of "stretch" mode that is actually distorting the picture slightly, probably with some subtle zoom as well, to make a 4:3 picture fit a 16:9 screen.

As for Front Row, I don't believe there is a simple way to do any zoom/pan. Wait, perhaps there is... haven't tried it, but the Zoom feature of the Universal Access control panel might still function when in Front Row mode.
 
Thanks for the post xraydoc.

In DVD player when i set the zoom function to 'auto zoom' it fills the screen perfectly without cutting any of the image out or distorting the image. However this does not carry over into Front Row, but i will try and play around with settings to see if this can be done.

Unless someone else can beat me to it which would be great.
 
ChiefCT said:
In DVD player when i set the zoom function to 'auto zoom' it fills the screen perfectly without cutting any of the image out or distorting the image.
Click to expand...

...This is impossible. You can't force 4:3 to 16:9 without either cutting some of the image off or distorting it, or a little of both.

This isn't magic.
 
As a side note to this, Front Row looks better in Tiger than it does in Leopard IMO.
It also seemed a lot quicker/more responsive in Tiger.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back