Capturing to disk with Nova T - format question

[Mordwid]

I have the Hauppauge Nova-T PCI DVB-T card.

I'd like people's comments on how they've found with capturing to disk.

There doesn't seem to be any options in the format of the capture, as an
example the current American Idol shows come out square with black borders
down the side. Shouldn't I be able to view this capture full screen? Even
when burnt to DVD I am forced to watch it like so, DVD player setup doesn't
allow changes either.

And by the way the broadcast was not in widescreen.

[Louis Solomon [SteelBytes]]

all broadcasts are wide screen ... non ws images are 'padded' with black
borders by the station before broadcast.
therefore, the save to disk is doing what it should.
maybe you need to get a video editing tool, and crop the black borders.

--
Louis Solomon
www.steelbytes.com

"Mordwid" <mordwid@thecavern.com> wrote in message
news:402159b6$0$19704$afc38c87@news.optusnet.com.a u...
>I have the Hauppauge Nova-T PCI DVB-T card.
>
> I'd like people's comments on how they've found with capturing to disk.
>
> There doesn't seem to be any options in the format of the capture, as an
> example the current American Idol shows come out square with black borders
> down the side. Shouldn't I be able to view this capture full screen? Even
> when burnt to DVD I am forced to watch it like so, DVD player setup
> doesn't
> allow changes either.
>
> And by the way the broadcast was not in widescreen.
>
>

[Louis Solomon [SteelBytes]]

> all broadcasts are wide screen ...

I of course mean digital fta broadcasts in aus

--
Louis Solomon
www.steelbytes.com

[Stephen Neal]

Mordwid wrote:
> I have the Hauppauge Nova-T PCI DVB-T card.
>
> I'd like people's comments on how they've found with capturing to
> disk.
>
> There doesn't seem to be any options in the format of the capture, as
> an example the current American Idol shows come out square with black
> borders down the side. Shouldn't I be able to view this capture full
> screen? Even when burnt to DVD I am forced to watch it like so, DVD
> player setup doesn't allow changes either.
>
> And by the way the broadcast was not in widescreen.

The broadcaster is broadcasting 4:3 material as a 16:9 signal with black
bars left and right (this is what the BBC and Channel Five do in the UK -
ITV and C4 don't) When the Nova-T records to disk it purely records the
MPEG signal as received - so this includes the black bars. To remove the
black bars it would almost certainly have to decode the MPEG2 signal, crop
the black bars and then re-encode it, as cropping in the MPEG2 domain is not
easy. This would take quite a lot of processing, and reduce the picture
quality (unless a higher data rate was used to re-encode)

To solve the DVD playback issue - if you are using a separate DVD player -
if you go into the output or TV settings and select 4:3 (and no
letterboxing) for replay of the central 4:3 portion of the image only. This
will, of course, only work if the DVD is mastered to appear as a 16:9 DVD on
replay - many DVD authoring packages don't do this properly so incorrectly
flag a 16:9 anamorphic recording as 4:3 - though TMPEnc DVD Author does do
this. I have recorded a number of 16:9 DVDs this way and they replay
correctly in the correct aspect ratio.

Additionally the Beta version of Showshifter DVB now supports AFDs (the
signal that should be - and in the UK is - broadcast to signal which areas
of the 16:9 frame are carrying active picture) - so if a 4:3 pillarbox in a
16:9 frame (technically often called 12P16) broadcast is received / recorded
/ replayed within showshifter it will perform the 4:3 centre cut-out and
display full-frame on a 4:3 display. The Showshifter software seems far
better than the basic Hauppauge stuff that the Nova-T comes with.

Steve