Question on VLC and Vertical Black Bars

[ron spencer]

I've recently made a HTPC with some spare parts and all is super good!

But when suing VLC on my old plasma, which is 720p, I am getting small vertical black bars on some of my video. I don't get these on my Dell 24" monitor. Is there something I'm missing here? I know VLC is supposed to play the video as it is, but I am curious as to why I get the full 1920 resolution on my PC monitor but not TV. I have tried changing aspect and crop to no avail. It is not bad, but it is a bit weird having those vertical bars. Not sure show I can stretch them a bit, or if I'm way off base.

Thanks

[jagabo]

What do you mean "VLC on my old Plasma"? VLC is literally running on the TV? Or do you mean your computer is hooked up to the TV and you are running VLC on your computer?

Of course, you'll never get full 1920x1080 resolution on a 720p TV.

[ron spencer]

What do you mean "VLC on my old Plasma"? VLC is literally running on the TV? Or do you mean your computer is hooked up to the TV and you are running VLC on your computer?

Of course, you'll never get full 1920x1080 resolution on a 720p TV.

Of course it's on a PC connected to a TV. What else??? Ha! I don't care about the resolution, I just am wondering why the vertical black bars are added.

[jagabo]

What's the native resolution of the Plasma? What resolution is the PC set to? My guess is the PC is set to the native resolution of the plasma but that resolution isn't 16:9. If that's the case then you can set the Monitor Pixel Aspect Ratio in the video section (show all settings) of VLC. Your graphics card's drivers may also have a setting for this.

[ron spencer]

@jagabo

Thank you for your post. This is an older SAMSUNG 50" 720p Plasma HDTV PN50A450.

The specs state:

With a maximum resolution of 1365x768 (16:9), the widescreen Samsung PN50A450 fully supports up to HDTV 720p (1280x720, progressive) for a truly high-definition experience.

So then I need to ensure that my video card is set to 1365x768 right? Or can that be adjusted in the pixel aspect ratio you mention?

thanks!

[jagabo]

@jagabo

Thank you for your post. This is an older SAMSUNG 50" 720p Plasma HDTV PN50A450.

The specs state:

With a maximum resolution of 1365x768 (16:9), the widescreen Samsung PN50A450 fully supports up to HDTV 720p (1280x720, progressive) for a truly high-definition experience.

So then I need to ensure that my video card is set to 1365x768 right? Or can that be adjusted in the pixel aspect ratio you mention?

thanks!

1365x768 is a 16:9 frame size. Setting any 16:9 size on your computer should give you a picture that fills the frame -- assuming you're playing 16:9 video that fills its frame (eg, a 2.35:1 movie will not fill a 16:9 frame). I don't know if your graphics card will allow 1365 pixels wide. You may have to use 1366. Or even 1280x720.

[ron spencer]

@jagabo

Thanks for your help...there was, buried deep in the driver options, a scaling factor that had a default that was causing some scaling issues. All fixed!

thanks again