Trash80toG-4
NIGHT STALKER
USA
2899 Posts |
 Posted - 10 Oct 2002 : 08:50:51
I just posted this question about resurrecting wasted pixels over on fritter and thought I'd ask my comrades too:quote:
I've been playing with the Quadra 630 Video System since the year of the flood and the DVD seems to be the first thing it couldn't handle adequately in terms of play-thru now that I'm using one in my 6360. This got me wondering if there was a way to hack the hardware/firmware/software to use a better portion of its capabilities for letterbox play-thru of DVD's, so I ran the numbers in a spreadsheet and came up with parameters for a possible hack.
1.33333:1 - TV/Video-In card display aspect ratio (same as NTSC aspect ratio)
640 x 480 - Max.Video-In card capability
307,200 pixels - max. display res. pixel count
640 x 480 - Full Screen Video Res. Supported by Video-In card
832 x 624 - Max. Video Res. Supported by Video-In card in a 640 x 480 window
2.35:1 - aspect ratio of CinemaScope/Panavision/WideScreen (worldwide)
832 x 354 - maximum window for Video-In card hack at 2.35:1 aspect ratio
29,563 pixels - 95.89% utilization of the 307,200 pixel limit of hardware
A custom window setting of 416 x 177 pixels gives a proper 2.35:1 aspect ratio 1/2 screen version of 832 x 354 that displays within the hard 640 pixel limit of the system as it stands.
What is interesting is that a DVD feed to the S-Video in on the card letterboxes as a distorted (elongated) image of the full DVD frame. I don't know if this is a good sign or a bad omen, maybe it'll mean something to somebody else. The flexibility of entering custom windows of variable aspect ratios seems like half the battle, but I really have no idea what is involved.
What do you folks think the chances are of hacking Apple Video Player (or some other QuickTime video player under the Mac O.S.) to do an 832 x 354 letterbox format? Is there any support under Linux for these cards? The 6360 was a popular linux box, IIRC.
Does this sound like a Res-Edit level hack or something that would need to be done at the source code level. Worse, does it sound like a firmware limitation or, heaven forbid, a hardware limitation in terms of something like a VRAM or I/O structure implementation of the Video-In Card hardware itself?
I'm confused . . . 
jt
Whatcha think, troops? jt  ™.
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TV/Video System: peripheral pixel hack?
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