widescreen AVIs

[pyr0maniac]

Hi, I am considering purchasing a xms888, however I am deterred by the fact that there are margins on all sides of the screen on 640x350 avis, and I intend to watch mainly avis of this resolution.

I would love to hear recommendations and any possible work-arounds to this problem that people have tried.

EDIT: I would also like to know how distracting these borders are.

[jokiin]

Originally Posted by pyr0maniac

Hi, I am considering purchasing a xms888, however I am deterred by the fact that there are margins on all sides of the screen on 640x350 avis, and I intend to watch mainly avis of this resolution.

I would love to hear recommendations and any possible work-arounds to this problem that people have tried.

EDIT: I would also like to know how distracting these borders are.

It's not known if the ESS chipset will be able to support these as yet, firmware has still not been finalised, other ESS players seem to suffer the same fate also. The Trio DX-628 uses a different chipset and seems to handle these files much better, but there are some things that it can't do compared to the XMS888 so I guess it depends what is most important to you. How distracting you find it may depend on what sort of TV you are using, It doesn't bother me that much (146cm Widescreen set) but a smaller set might be different.

[pyr0maniac]

Thanks, do you know if the sigma chips also suffer the same problem as the ESS ones in this regard?

[jokiin]

Originally Posted by pyr0maniac

Thanks, do you know if the sigma chips also suffer the same problem as the ESS ones in this regard?

I haven't been able to try any sigma based players as yet, perhaps someone else may be able to offer some advice.

[pyr0maniac]

Would resizing the width of the an AVI to a smaller size so it becomes full-screen then turning my TV onto widescreen be an option?

[andw]

pyr0maniac.
Yes, it is a little bit annoying on the XMS-888, however having said that, If your TV can handle NTSC, you can switch the player to NTSC (simple button press on the remote), as NTSC has less lines than PAL, the image is displayed with smaller borders top&bottom, and for some reason, no borders left&right.
This is hopefully a temporary workaround until a firmware version fixes it completely (if possible).
I had a play with a DX-628, it seems to understand aspect ratios correctly for widescreen TV's, but does not as yet support subtitles on avi's etc.
(If you want to resize, 576x432 fills the screen well, but you may lose quality, as you would be re-processing an Mpeg4 file again. - Just like with a jpg picture, you lose quality every time you make a change)