I discovered the ORIGINAL, LETTERBOX, STRETCH, ZOOM feature. Earlier on, I used ffmpeg to convert “squished” movies and 4:3 widescreen movies so they fit better on a 16x9 screen. (Why these anomalies exist in the first place is beyond me. For example, THE ABYSS is 4:3 widescreen on all DVD copies I own.) I discovered that STRETCH fixes movies like my copy of ABSOLUTE ZERO and ZOOM fixes movies like THE ABYSS and VOLCANO. The thing is, I have to hit about 100 buttons to get to the point I can make the format change. It’s kind of similar to the buttons that show up on the left that include SUBTITLES, SOUND, etc. While I can adjust a lot of this in the web interface, I cannot do that for the STRETCH, ZOOM stuff. I have discovered I want to use LETTERBOX most of the time. I would like one of two things: either allow us to mark this format in the web interface so it is remembered or put a button on the screen that makes it easier to navigate to. Also, there needs to be a default, which I would set to LETTERBOX if the field is not set in the web interface. Right now, SHIELD remembers the setting, so if I navigate to a movie that needs STRETCH or ZOOM, I have to undo it when I switch to the common LETTERBOX. As previously mentioned, undoing requires another “100 button pushes.”
Along these lines, I would like the SUBTITLES button moved to the right, since it’s the most likely thing I will want to turn off. I like SUBTITLES. But I have to turn them off when I am watching TV (i.e., when I’ve recorded something using the new TV Tuner Card feature and I am now watching it). The TV captions are very obtrusive, and all I can do is turn them off – there is no way to adjust their appearance.
I am using NVIDIA SHIELD. I use the current version offered. Apparently that is not the latest version. Even though NVIDIA is Android-based, it does not behave like Android all the time. It has a bizarre interface to GOOGLE PLAY, for instance. I only use it for Plex and a few other apps (e.g., surveillance cameras). But it thinks I want to play games, etc., and I think aims for that audience (unfortunately).
