ViewModeSwitcher plugin (Version 0.3)

[BarneyB]

First of all forgive me because I am new to the world of HTPCs and Media Portal. I'm loving MP but cannot get my TV to display correctly and I think your plugin might help me....however I am using an SD (old analog) TV not a widescreen or LCD display.

I have a digital TV tuner and while some programs I watch such as the news is ok, some older programs such as The Simpsons, Futurama etc have black bars on the left and right side.

This is the way it should be shown (the red is the border of my TV):


This is the way it is shown with "Normal" setting:


This is the way it is shown with "Stretch" setting:


This is the way it is shown with "Pan and Scan" setting (note it stretches past the border of the TV):


I have tried all different codecs (including the one from PowerDVD 6) but have had no luck. The weird thing is my TV Tuner's software sizes the image perfectly but the software is crappy and too hard to use for the less savvy people in my household.

Will this plugin help my problem?

[lkuech]

Hi BarneyB.

For people with a 4:3 screen, my plugin have not that much to offer. What you are looking for is a functionality to crop the picture of the tv broadcast.

To archive this you have to options:

1. Use my plugin and create a rule that fits your 4:3 signal and use the "Overscan" value to define how many pixel should be cropped ...
2. While watching tv in fullscreen open the context menu (F9) and use the crop settings from mp itself.

For a first approach I would propose option 2.

I hope that helps you a little bit.

Bye
Lars

[Slurm]

I like your plugin really very much and it's working very good! for it.

But I have a question: When I start TV it starts in the small window and I have to go to this window and press ok to make it fullscreen. The problem is that it chooses well the correct ViewMode in the small window but won't set the correct ViewMode when switching to fullscreen (or just keep the current ViewMode from the small window). It just chooses the last ViewMode I used when I exited TV.

Is there a way to force the correct ViewMode when switching to fullscreen?

[lkuech]

Hi Slurm.

I also noticed this. It seems that the mytv stores the last viemode in some conditions...
If I found some time next month I will try to figure out what causes this issue. It seems to appear only from time time or it is only noticeable from time to time...

Bye
Lars

[boseg23]

Hi,

I have an issue related to ViewModeSwitcher configuration.
I had that working in RC1 (that's a long time ago).
With the current RC3 and SVN the configuration crashes with a runtime exception.
Pls. have a look at this thread for more information (log attached).

Thank you!

Regards
Arno

[lkuech]

Hi Arno.

Did you try the updated version I have posted here. http://forum.team-mediaportal.com/sh...6&postcount=68 ?

I guess (and hope ) this will help

bye
Lars

[boseg23]

Hi,

same behaviour on new version. Deleting the ViewModeSwitcher-Section in MediaPortal.xml finally did the trick!

Regards
Arno

[phunqe]

lkuech,

what are your plans for this plugin? Maybe it should be considered as a "core" functionality.
At least that is my opinion. When you have like over 50 channels and have to manually adjust the aspect of all the channels not broadcasted in widescreen, it get's really tedious. A task that MCE and Vista MCE (as well as set top boxes) do automatically.

Cheers and thanks for this

[noxx2]

i put the dll in the tvserver/plugin folder

if i start tv server, i get a error message:

[lkuech]

@phunqe: I'm also the meaning that something like this should be part of MP itself. Currently the development of MP is in a "frozen phase" which means no new features only bug fixes. But we will see what is possible after that.

@noxx2: ViewModeSwitcher is a plugin that has to be installed into the plugins folder of MediaPortal, no matter if you use the tv server or the old tv engine.

Bye
Lars