Egon's Ghost

I hope this is the right forum.

I have a new Dell 2007 WFP (widescreen), and I love it; I watch my DVDs on my computer. I have PowerDVD 6.0, and combined with my video card, Chaintech GeForce 7300 GT (NVidia drivers), renders DVDs very nicely, and the non-anamorphic Star Wars look pretty good (to me). I have several non-anamorphic DVDs. How can I zoom non-anamorphic DVDs to fill more of the screen, but retain the aspect ratio? PowerDVD has digital zoom, but only 4x and 8x; 4x is too much. I need 2x. Should I try VideoLAN VLC (which lets you input a ratio)? I just don't like how DVDs look in VLC, and I don't know how to enable hardware acceleration like in PowerDVD.

Any ideas?

Egon's Ghost

Bump. Anyone?

KFelon

If you watch them in a Window I believe you can stretch the player window however you want... If you have XP or 2000 goto start, then run, & type 'dvdplay' & try the windows DVD Player. Also you should try Windows Media Player which I believe has DVD player support. Also you should try Winamp, I don't know if you can directly play a DVD in Winamp, but you should at the very lease be able to open the vobs directly off the DVD with it & play the actual movie...

None of this may help you, but you have nothing to lose since everything is free. Sorry I can't give you an exact answer.

Removed text that would get this thread closed - next time will require administrative action -X

Egon's Ghost

I guess I'll try fiddling with VLC and check their forums. PowerDVD 5 had zoom 2x, I seem to remember, but I could be wrong.

Does anyone else here watch DVDs on PC and zoom non-anamorphic?

eedoon

Since I'm using a non-widescreen monitor I don't zoom my stuff. Things will change as I'm having a 2407FPW on order though.

Try that VLC player - I don't use it myself but I've heard good words about them.

I myself use Media Player Classic - and you can zoom the video windows with small increments - a little bit like the video setup in a video card setting in Window's Control Panel.

Egon's Ghost

Thanks, eedoon. I have MPC (for QuickTime Alternative), I'll try it. I don't use VLC much; if I can figure out hardware acceleration, I'll use it. I finally switched on hardware features in PowerDVD and it made a noticeable difference.

Is the 2407WFP a larger version of the 2007? You'll love it! I can play Half-Life 2 in 16:10...
When you get it, let me know if you have a solution for non-anamorphics.

eedoon

Yeah. Try that MPC. Also the zoom control are easy enough once you get the hold of it - simply by using your numpad, you can zoom, relocate and stretch your video during windowed and full screen mode. I'm not 100% sure but it's a good guess that this is the solution of your problem.

Yes, the 2407 is the larger version of the 2007. I wouldn't play Half-Life on that monitor though - with a nativer resolution of 1920x1200 everything will be choppy unless if I scale things down. I was thinking of a dual monitor setup (one widescreen, one 4:3 for gaming and Academy ratio movies) but that might come a long way in the future.

eedoon

Oh. Just in case you don't want to spend some time to figure things out - here's a partial key chart for the control:

Reset: numpad 5
Increase size (zoom in): numpad 9
Increase width (stretch): numpad 6
Increase height (stretch): numpad 8
Decrease size (zoom out): numpad 1
Decrease width: numpad 4
Decrease height: numpad 2

You can also hold Ctrl and press the numpad to move the video left right up and down.

These keys are fully customizable by user - you can look at it at Options and then submenu keys. You can also see the full keychart here.

Hope this helps.

Egon's Ghost

You mean on the 2407, because HL2 doesn't support that resolution? I do notice choppiness on the 2007; I thought it was my video card, but a 7300 GT? Can't be. I'll try 4:3, maybe it's better. I haven't fired up Counter-Strike 1.6 yet (I had to buy bare-bones HL2--long story), can't wait! Older games like Thief 2 and System Shock 2 look awesome, given their age.

Thanks for the MPC commands, I'll fire up Empire Strikes Back and give it a try!

DivxGuy

TheaterTek offers custom aspect ratios.

eedoon

You're welcome. Let me know how it goes.
Hmmm perhaps I can play older games. Yeah I mean on the 2407. I'm not sure about the resolution support but with that kind of resolution, I think my video card don't have enough juice to play games at 1920x1200.

eedoon

Been quite some time after I mention that I have the 2407 on order. Since I'm on a hellhole country, it took some time for my monitor to arrive.

But anyway. I checked the zoom thingie, and it worked just as I thought it would be, so I guess you wouldn't have problem.

I'm playing Brazil Criterion Collection (original pressing which is non anamorphic). Its not very obvious from the pics, but you can clearly see that its correctly zoomed:

Nick Martin

I use both MPC and Zoom Player. When I was dealing with the exact same issue (viewing the Non-anamorphic Star Wars DVDs through the computer to my widescreen LCD TV) I found that Zoom Player has one big advantage in that you can set an aspect ratio (any you want) and simply configure the image shape to match by pressing any number key you assign the aspect ratio to.

For example, viewing one of those Star Wars DVDs accurately means pressing "1", or a 4x3 TV DVD cropped to 16x9 means pressing "2", and restoring the image to its default means pressing "0" and so on.