I have the Sanford and Son TV show series on DVD =) and I want to rip each episode and copy them to my HD Live. The DVD Ripper I am using is Freemake. Freemake allows me to choose several different formats for the output and up to now I have been choosing DVI and letting the resolution default to 720x480.
My television is a 32" Sony Bravia 1020p HD and whenever I watch the videos they are a bit grainy and also kindof jumpy (hard to explain, but it looks like it’s sort of ‘sped up’).
I was wondering, should I recreate the videos and chose something other than 720x480?
More generally, is it better to create videos at their native resolution and let the WD TV Live box change the resolution on-the-fly or is it better covert whenever ripping the video?
NOTE, I assumed that the WD TV Live box changes the resolution to match my HD TV while it’s playing the video. If that is not the case then it changes my question:
Can I configure the WD TV Live box to modify the output resolution while playing videos or is this something that can only be done when creating the video?
Once the resolution is set up on your TV the WDTV will play the video at that resolution. It does not alter it no matter what the resolution of the video is.
“Once the resolution is set up on your TV the WDTV will play the video at that resolution. It does not alter it no matter what the resolution of the video is.”
Rich, you say that the resolution on my TV is ‘fixed’ and yet whenever I tune into HD channels the picture fills the screen. Whenever I am not tuned to HD channels the picture has black rectangles on either side.
Isn’t my TV changing resolution dynamically based on the video format (HD or not HD)?
Whatever resolution you set the WDTV to, that’s what it outputs at.
If you set it to 1080, then it outputs at 1080, regardless of whether you’re playing 1080 media or 720 media or 480 media.
If you set it to 720, then it outputs at 720, regardless of whether you’re playing 1080 media or 720 media or 480 media.
If you’re watching on composite (or have Component set to 480), then it outputs at 480, regardless of whether you’re playing 1080 media or 720 media or 480 media.
It handles all the upscaling/downscaling necessary.
What you’re seeing with the black bars (called “pillarboxing” when they’re on the sides like that, and “letterboxing” if they’re top and bottom), isn’t a change in resolution.
If your tv is displaying at 1080, then when you’re watching 16:9 media, it fills the entire screen at 1920x1080. If you’re watching 4:3 media (whether a SD channel or a DVD), then you get a 1440x1080 picture in the middle of the screen, with the pillarboxes at the sides. It upscales the picture to the same 1920x1080 image. The “resolution” itself doesn’t change – it’s always 1920x1080 in this case.
RoofingGuy, thank you for the explanation! I didn’t even realize I could configure the WD TV Live box output resolution. Going to go do that now.
On a side note, I have a question about the forums. Is there a way to configure replies so that they keep the original text and put it in quotes at the top?
I have an original DVD set of the entire Sanford and Son series that I just purchased from Best Buy.
How should I configure my system such that I can play the episodes with the best picture/sound quality from my HD Live box (utilizing a DVD Ripper program such as Freemake)?
