[mythtvnz] DVB-S Freeview wrong Aspect ratio for TV3

[Wade Maxfield]

>On Fri, 2007-08-17 at 17:49 +1200, Richard wrote:
>>  They should change the stream to indicate 4:3 and fill the frame with the
>>  4:3 content allowing the STB to give users the option of watching how they
>>  want to.
>
>Yeah, there's no reason to pillarbox when you can send flags for aspect
>ratio very regularly.
>
>UKTV via Sky does this perfectly, you get 4:3 content flagged as 4:3,
>and 16:9 content as 16:9 letterboxed on a 4:3 display.
>
>I *believe* on 16:9 TVs tho it doesn't work quite right?
>
>--
>David Zanetti <dave2@wetstring.net>
>http://hairy.geek.nz/


I've only got 4:3 TV connected to the Sky box, so I can't answer that 
and I'm not certain how that info gets passed from the Sky box to the 
TV, but in the UK they had a system called PAL Plus (PAL+ ???)  that 
was used for signalling the aspect ration in OTA broadcasts.  It may 
be what is being used.

I bought a Nokia widescreen TV (in NZ) in '99 which had PAL PLus 
support as a feature, and it caused havoc while watching DVDs. 
Something in the signal from the DVD player would trigger an aspect 
ratio change, and the TV would switch from 16:9 to 4:3 Zoom and back 
again frequently (and always at the same points in the disc).  It 
could happen as often as 4-5 times in the space of 3 seconds 
depending on the disc.  And as with all magic of this kind, there was 
no way to turn off the PAL Plus features.

  - Wade