[opendtv] Re: Popular screen aspect ratios

  • From: Craig Birkmaier <craig@xxxxxxxxx>
  • To: opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Sun, 2 Jan 2011 10:06:55 -0500

At 3:36 PM -0500 1/1/11, Albert Manfredi wrote:
Yes. This has nothing to do with "MPEG metadata." It is an illustration of what I've been trying in vain to explain to Craig. The MPEG decoder needs to know what the screen aspect ratio is, but the player is assuming all screens are 16:9.
It would have been a gas if Craig still had his old 4:3 HD monitor, and bought a BluRay player.
The decoder DOES NOT need to know what the screen aspect ratio is. it simply needs a known way to present samples to the display processor. With a bit of intelligence it would be easy to have the decoder and display processor communicate and handle ANY format, as happens routinely with my MacBook Pro. But this level of intelligence does not exist in most DTVs today (hopefully with HDMI things will improve).
And that 4:3 DTV display is still in the family. But it would be a complete waste of time to hook up a BluRay player to a 1080i analog projection display. In fact it is a complete waste of time to hook up a Blu-Ray player to the vast majority of DTVs that have been sold. Until you are delivering the content to a 1080P display with at least a 60" diagonal, an upconverting SD DVD player is more than adequate. 

Regards
Craig


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