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Full Version: Bring back the black bars!!!
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My issue is to do with the aspect ratio. I have two android boxes they physically look the same but I think they may have different internals and software.... The problem is when I play a movie on one box I get the desired aspect ratio I want with two black bars top and bottom. But when I play the same movie on the other box I don't get the black bars and the whole movie looks stretched horribly from top to bottom... I tried playing with the settings so that I can get rid of the stretched look but can't work it out...can any body help me to find the setting that will stop the movie from being stretched from top to bottom and bring back the black bars!!!
See the "view mode" video setting during video playback, video playback (wiki).
Thanks for reply, I tried fiddling with the view mode settings whilst it was playing and it made no difference, is it supposed to make an automatic difference straight away? I'm at the point where I will probably uninstall kodi and reinstall to see if that makes a difference...but would appreciate other ideas before that happens....also everything else looks perfect such as the menu screens and such, it's just when the movie plays the screen looks stretched without the black bars...
Okay I have solved the issue...I went to settings - and disabled the amcodec setting. Now the picture is not stretched and I have the two black bars that make the movie look natural.

Wonder why the amcodec enabled would do this? Is amcodec important? If so is there a way I can have it enabled and still maintain the natural aspect ratio?
amcodec is used for hardware acceleration of video playback and required for most ARM boxes that can't handle 1080p h264 videos in CPU. The borked aspect ratio could be a bug. Can you give more details about the box having the issues, like brand and model or even more technical stuff like the chipsets?
Thanks for reply and explanation. So out sounds like the amcodec is useful but yes whenever I toggle it on it creates the unnatural stretched look. I have copied the technical specification description from Amazon about the box I bought below


This MX III TV Box is sold by GooBang Doo 

Features:

* Video format: Support 2160P muti-format video decode, H.264, 4K*2K 
* H.264 Data Rate: Up to 60Mbps 
* Support Decoder format: HD MPEG1/2/4, H.264, HD AVC/VC-1, RM/RMVB, Xvid/DivX3/4/5/6, RealVideo8/9/10 
* Support Media format: Avi/Rm/Rmvb/Ts/Vob/Mkv/Mov/ISO/wmv/asf/flv/dat/mpg/mpeg
* Support Music format: MP3/WMA/AAC/WAV/OGG/AC3/DDP/TrueHD/DTS/DTS/HD/FLAC/APE
* Support Photo format: HD JPEG/BMP/GIF/PNG/TIFF 

Specifications: 

* Operation System: Android 4.4.2 
* Language: Multi -language 
* CPU: Amlogic S802 Quad-Core up to 2.0GHz 
* GPU: Octa core ARM Mali-450 GPU up to 600MHz 
* SDRAM: DDR3 2GB 
* Nand Flash: 8GB NAND FLASH 
* Wifi: IEEE 802.11 b/g/n, 2.4G 
* The extended storage: Support 1-32GB TF Card 
* Power Supply: DC 5V/2A, DC Jack 
* HDMI Out: Up to HDMI 2.0, Support max 4k*2k display 
* Bluetooth: Support Bluetooth 4.0 
* Data Output: SPDIF 
* AV Out: 3.5mm Headphone Jack 
* Network: RJ45 10M/100M 
* Audio format: Support: MP3, AAC, WMA, RM, FLAC, OGG 
Sounds like it either needs to update to the latest stable version of Kodi, which is v14.2, or it might need a firmware update to correct something that wasn't set up wrong on the Android-level.
Thanks for the reply Ned... I've heard that without the amcodec done hd videos don't play properly and stutter...but so far I've had no problems playing hd videos so I think I will leave it disabled... I'll consider upgrading kodi first and see what happens if still problems then consider firmware update... all though I'm less confident with doing that...
Looks like a S802 to me.
The "no black bars" effect with amlcodec is probably due to missing permissions, but recent amlogic soc's work fine with MediaCodec, as well.
Thanks koying...I just played around with the superuser thing app and kodi wasn't in the list...Do you know how I can grant kodi all the permissions it needs? Advance thanks..
Yes! The superuser issue has fixed the black bar issue...well I thought things were good after I disabled the amcodec. But I played a hd movie and I noticed blatant stuttering and sync issues especially when there was a lot going on in an action scene....eventually I updated superuser and checked it's options. Then I reinstalled kodi...and then I got a screen asking to grant superuser permission when I started kodi. I gave permission. I started playing movies and now all the movies play properly in right aspect ratio in hardware mode...I wonder why the people who sold the box didn't set up properly. On Amazon it was sold as working properly and set up properly....obviously that was a stretch of the truth...Any way thanks guys for help...I have a little issue with passing through audio but I'll put that on another post... [SMILING FACE WITH OPEN MOUTH]
As of Isengard, Kodi won't handle permissions at all (it's just not its business) so you better complain to your vendor about those permissions or you're stuck with Helix...
In theory, this only needs to be repaired once?
Once per reboot Wink
Thanks all for help with video[THUMBS UP SIGN]
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