How do I play a 4 x 3 video in correct aspect ratio?

WD Legacy Products WD TV Live & Live Plus
1

I have a QuickTime clip in H.264, 768 x 576 pixels. I have the WDTV connected to a projector via HDMI - DVI. The projector is set to 4 x 3 aspect ratio (its native format), but my clip plays stretched into 16 x 9.

Is it possible to correct this ?

Many thanks

2

Have you tried changing the aspect ratio in the WDTV menu.

Settings - Audio / Video Settings - Aspect Ratio - Normal

plus could it be that the clip is letterboxed?

3

Thanks, but yes … it’s the first thing I tried. I suspect that “normal” means 16 x 9 for output from the HDMI port.

4

No, “normal” in this case means your television device either is widescreen (16:9) or “normal” (4:3) - it has nothing to do with HDMI (you can output via composite, for example, and it still works the same way).

If that didn’t affect your clip you might try looking at your projector settings to see if the option to stretch things to fill the screen is on.  Aspect ratio for video is controlled by several things: by the actual resolution of the video as well as the aspect ratio stored in the clip.  But it can also be controlled by the output device.  Since you’ve adjusted the Live already (to “Normal”) the next step is to adjust your projector (assuming you don’t want to adjust the clip itself, which would be the third thing to try).

5

Thanks Mike!

I had got  into the habit of leaving the projector on “Auto” – but it seems this wasn’t interpreting the WDTV signal correctly, so I just had to specify the format I wanted.

I just posted another query. Any ideas you might have there would be gratefully received.