[MPlayer-users] monitor size vs. aspect ratio vs. resolution

[Rich Felker]

On Mon, Aug 15, 2005 at 11:52:55PM -0500, Reshat Sabiq wrote:
> RC wrote:
> 
> >On Mon, 15 Aug 2005 00:28:20 -0500
> >Reshat Sabiq <sabiq at csociety.org> wrote:
> >
> > 
> >
> >>4. Is it a correct statement that non-widescreen videos should be 
> >>watched in 4:3, and widescreen ones in 16:9, regardless of resolution 
> >>and physical dimensions? 
> >>   
> >>
> >
> >No, the aspect ratio needs to be adjusted for screens that aren't 4/3
> >to look correct.  However, you don't need to do that yourself.  Just set
> >"-monitoraspect" and mplayer will handle it.
> >
> > 
> >
> >>Doesn't 4:3 already mean a distortion, since most DVDs, for instance,
> >>are 720x480, which is a ratio of 1.5?
> >>   
> >>
> >
> >DVDs use 720x480, but they have an aspect ratio of 16/9 or 4/3.  So they
> >are scaled upon playback to either 854x480, or 720x540.
> > 
> >
> Thanks for all the answers.
> 2 folow-up questions:
> 1. so using -monitoraspect 332:209 basically delegates the choice of 
> aspect ratio to mplayer, correct? I just tried both that and 1.78, and 
> both of them result in 1.33:1 aspect being used. The bad thing for the 
> DVD i just tried is that there is a lot of unused space in 4:3 aspect 
> ratio on both left-right and top-bottom (almost half the screen is 
> black).

This is correct. The picture is 4:3, so it will only be as large as
the maximal 4:3 region on your screen.

> And while indeed 4:3 aspect ratio looks better for it than 16:9 
> which i tried manually thru gmplayer menu item, it is only nicely 
> viewable in xine where i can utilize most/all of the black space using 
> Alt+z and Ctrl+z. I'm not aware of similar shortcuts in mplayer.

Stretching is a stupid feature that makes your video look incredibly
ugly, that's why MPlayer doesn't do this by default or have automatic
modes for it.

> 2. which monitor would you guys prefer: the one with max resolution of 
> 1280x800 (but it doesn't support 1280x720 or any other 16:9 pixel 
> ratio), or the one with max resolution of 1280x720?

It really doesn't matter, but assuming pixels are square, 1280x800 is
better since it's closer to 4:3.

Rich