[MPlayer-users] Re: Changing aspect ratio while playing a file

[Rich Felker]

On Wed, Nov 16, 2005 at 11:04:09PM +0100, Sebastian Kaps wrote:
> Hi Rich!
> 
> > The actual TV does not have pixels. Pixels are a digital artifact.
> 
> I know, but it doesn't matter here.
> 
> >> That's nuts, since all 16:9 TVs I know do have a 4:3 mode where 4:3
> >> videos are displayed in a 4:3 area on the center of the screen (i.e.
> >> black bars left and right). So you won't lose anything if you leave 4:3
> >> videos unscaled and switch the TV into 4:3 mode.
> 
> > The amount you lose is the same either way 
> 
> Why? If I use "mplayer -monitoraspect 16:9" on a 4:3 video, mplayer
> scales it down horizontally. There's no way to do this without losing

No it does not. It scales it way up both horizontally and vertically,
then your tv-out device downscales vertically and band-limits
horizontally.

The only way mplayer would be doing any downscaling is if you set your
videomode to something low like 640x480..

Rich