Why are my videos small when playing on TV

[Derring]

I have been given some films and when I play them on my TV, the picture is only about half the size of the actual TV screen (black border all around). The original format was .MP4, but this did not play on all of the three TVs that I have connected to my NAS Drive.

I have used AVC to convert the to AVI format and increased the video size to 640x480 (from 480x272), but this has not changed anything, but i can play them on all TVs

Anyone have any idea what I am doing wrong

Thanks

[DB83]

Firstly, you have changed the aspect ratio of your videos in the conversion. If you start with 480 * 272, if you increase the width to 640 the height should be 360. So at present everything might appear taller than it really is unless you applied a display aspect ratio of 16:9 during the conversion. Then you will have top and bottom bars in your 640*450 frame.

Videos do not magically fill a screen. You must look for a setting either on your tv or a player on your NAS which either 'zooms' or displays 'full screen'

[Derring]

I have checked some other videos and they have the same settings, but they fill the tv screen. So I am a little puzzled why some fille the screen and some dont, when they appear to have the same settings?

[DB83]

OK. To get to the bottom of this post a mediainfo report (text mode) of one video that does fill the screen and one video that does not.

I'll give you an example. I have a DV avi that with one player on default settings fills the screen (windowed) yet another player plays it as is.

Maybe you should also provide more info. Since you are using multiple TV's then unless they are identical then the in-built player is different. Make/Model of these tvs could assist as well as the player (if independent of the tv) from your NAS.

Also forget about the tvs for just one moment and consider their playback on your PC. Do all players play them (default settings) full-screen or just a box in the center of it ?

[Derring]

Hi Again and thanks for running with this.

I have attached two text files - Die Hard 2 plays in a small box and Good Day To Die Hard plays in full screen.

I have tried these two videos on three TVs, My android phone (VLC) and on my Windows 10 PC. The results are the same on al l devices

Thanks

[DB83]

Well the only difference in the two vids is that the second has a better bitrate. This is only a guess that the player you are using is 'fussy' in this respect and keeps the lower bitrate vid small to ensure a reasonable viewing experience (low bitrate vid blown up will look shite).

Also xvid is a rather 'poor' codec in this day and age so that could also be a factor.

As I said earlier, you can set your player to play these vids full-screen. VLC has a setting for this.