SONY DVP-SR700H - squashed DivX picture

[jhrebacka]

I've just bought Sony DVP-SR700H DVD player. Great picture from DVD, but when attempting to play DivX, could'n get correct picture. Either picture looks like on 4:3 TV (black bars around) or it is squashed - looks like 16:9 LetterBox.
In player's setup is TV correctly set to 16:9, picture changes as described if I switch "4:3 mode" from "Normal" to "Full" - it just stretches the picture.

Tested DivX file has resolution 720x406 px (almost 16:9).
Has anybody a solution? I think it is a firmware error, but SONY support says that it is normal..
Thanks Honza

[polychromeuganda]

I may not have the right answer, but since no one else has replied... I've run into a few causes for the behavior described.

First, even through the raw pixel aspect ratio for the file is close to 16:9, an AVI or DivX or XviD file may contain aspect ratio information causing the player to map the image to a 4:3 screen. Examine the file on a PC with gspot or a similar tool. If desired, the aspect ratio in the file can be changed without re-encoding by MPEG-4 Modifier and similar tools. Some players (both software and hardware) ignore this information and interpret the file as if all pixels are to be displayed as square. Media Player Classic can use the information in a file, ignore it, or override it.

Second, when the image width is full resolution 704 or 720 pixels, some (many) players map the image to a full academy format (4:3) screen. The firmware or chipset may do this because no DVD resolution (352/704/720 x 480/576) is actually 4:3 or 16:9, and the aspect ratio is applied at the screen. I don't know if aspect ratio information in the container file would be respected in a particular player. It wasn't in any I owned, I've never owned the DVP-SR700H you have.

Third, its possible that the player chipset is misbehaving because of the 720 x 406 image resolution. DivX image compression is based on 4 x 4 macroblocks consequently both the horizontal and vertical resolution should be multiples of 4. To produce a 720x406 image the player would have to either crop a 720x408 image or stretch a 720x404 image. A players chipset is only set up to take a certain number of actions on an image. Its possible that because the non-standard vertical resolution requires an added resize operation, there isn't another resize operation left for the TV aspect ratio.

What you can do - my first suggestion would be to try misinforming the player that the TV is 4:3 and have the TV stretch the image to 16:9. If that fails, you will have to convert the file to play it back on your DVD player. The best image quality would be obtained by converting it to DVD format at full resolution. If the displayed image should be wider than 16:9 it should be letterboxed at this step. A smaller file size can be obtained by converting to another DivX or XviD. For maximum compatibility I would suggest choosing an image width of 640 pixles or less that is a multiple of 4, and after computing a vertical resolution to achieve the desired aspect ratio, round the result to the nearest multiple of 4.

Its also possible someone with better information or who owns a DVP-SR700H will reply...

[jhrebacka]

Hi,
thanks for your answer!

I found one solution that helps.
I changed the aspect ratio of my file with MPEG-4 Modifier to 4:3 - fortunately, my player does not ignore it. Picture is stretched vertically to full height of the TV screen (looks really strange ) ) and then I change the DVD player screen setting for 4:3 picture to "Full" - the player stretches the picture horizontally. The picture is not deformed, but quality is terrible, I think thanks to multiple resizing.
I will try to make another file in correct size (multiples of 4 as you described) - if it will not help, I can convert files back to DVD format.

Excuse my poor English...