[Locutus73]

I think that it would be nice to have a new "video mode" preset, selectable with the select button, avaible when XBMC plays letterbox videos.
This video mode should stretch the video vertically (I think by a factor of 1.3333333) in order to cut the black bands on top and bottom of the video and to output an anmorphic image; in this video mode XBMC should output the wide signal through the scart cable in order to set the TV automatically to wide mode.
This video mode is useful ie when watching letterbox films recorded with a PVR.
Basically this video mode emulates the zoom function of 16:9 TV sets, but IMHO, it could reach better results than many TV processors.

Many thanks in advance.

[jmarshall]

Set your video resolution to 16x9 and away you go. No need to do anything else.

[Locutus73]

Set your video resolution to 16x9 and away you go. No need to do anything else.

You're right, but this way all the videos are displayed with the tv set in wide mode. 4:3 videos are displayed with black bands on the right and on the left loosing some orizontal resolution. I absolutely prefer the "Autoswitch between 16x9 and 4x3" parameter for the "Resolution" setting so that XBMC uses the best resolution for each video. I think it would be nice to have the "anamorphic zoom" option so that, when XBMC plays a 4:3 letterbox video with the autoswitch option, it originally plays it in 4:3 mode, but it lets the user to choose a 16:9 (wide mode) zoom. Now, with the autoswitch parameter, XBMC chooses between 16x9 and 4x3 at the beginning of the video and never changes this selecting various video modes.

[jmarshall]

So really the missing point is for 16x9 videos that have encoded blackbars in a 4x3 frame. Dunno if I can be bothered dealing with those to be honest. Ideally it would take into account the fact that it has blackbars (eg the "autocrop" procedure). In fact, that's probably how you can do it quickly for now:

Autoswitch to 16x9/4x3 so it plays in 4x3. Hit autocrop, then use Stretch 4x3. Obviously your TV won't switch to 16x9 but at least you don't have to play around in settings.

Cheers,
Jonathan