Progammable Aspect Ratio on Samsung Tizen TVs Plex App

[culssw]

Have a lot of material on my FreeNAS Plex server.
It is almost all PAL format MPEG-4.

When I use Plex on my Samsung UE46MU8005 TV (2014), the default aspect ratio
is 4:3 giving me Black bands to the left and right of the movie.
I can select aspect ratio so the stuff can be expanded to fit the full screen on my 16 x 9 TV.

With the nice new UE75MU8005 Tizen TV, I have not found any possibility to do this.

Before anyone points out that a movie recorded in 4:3 format should be viewed in 4:3 format, I would like to highlight that most of the material is 16:9 or 16:10 compressed to 4:3 format,
so viewing it in 4:3 format distorts the movie.

This really destroys the whole experience.

The server supports transcoding.
Right now, you can select transcoding when configuring the server.

I think it would be good if you could, using the app, select transcoding speed for a specific movie, and also choose whether to expand to full screen.
Like the server configuration, speed should be depending whether on internet, or on the local network, but aspect ratio should affect both.

The server should keep the choice, so if the movie is played again, it should use the previously set aspect ratio.

There should also be a default setting, so you can set the server to expand all movies.

[tom80H]

if it’s an anamorphic picture (squeezing e.g. a 16:9 video into a 4:3 aspect ratio), it appears there’s something wrong with either your file or the client as those should be played back in the stretched format (as they’re made for that).

have you taken those videos right from a DVD (e.g. using MakeMKV) or did you transcode/compress them yourself (e.g. using Handbrake)?

as for general handling of aspect ratio… this really should happen on your TV and not on the server. most tv sets support zooming or stretching/squeezing of your picture format – you don’t want the server to start meddling with this.

[culssw]

I record movies on a settop box, and the movies are then recorded through a SCART connector on a PVR.
A DVD is burned with the movie which is then converted to MPEG-4 using a PC/Aunsoft BluRay Video converter.
Have 13 TB of material, which is not going to be changed.

If I play the movie on the PVR, it gets expanded on the TV with the right settings on the PVR. HDMI connection, and set to upscale to 1024P.

If I play the movie on my Samsung UE46ES8005 (non Tizen) using the Plex App, it gets played in 4:3, but I can change to 16:9 so this works.

If I play the movie using my new Samsung UE75MU8005 (Tizen) using the Plex App, it gets played as 4:3 with no capability to play 16:9.

This means that the movie gets distorted, because the contents assumes that the TV expands the PAL to full screen and the Plex App on Tizen does not do this.
The Plex App on an Apple TV has the same problem.

Very little new content is broadcasted to show PAL in its original resolution. The content provider takes 16:9 or 16:10 and sends it out as 4:3, in a format that assumes expansion in the TV.

I suspect even original 4:3 content is compressed this way, so if you have a 4:3 television you will see black borders.

I do not think the Samsung Aspect Ratio settings affect the Apps.

The problem can only be fixed in two places, the Plex App or the Plex Server.

I can set the Plex Server to transcode the contents to Full HD format.

I doubt it would take much more performance to stretch the video as well.

Remember that you really need to decide for each movie how it should be handled. Some should be expanded some should not.

An App will not know this. For this, a server solution seems best.

As it is today, Plex is useless to me.

[culssw]

Here is an example output from MediaInfo

General
Complete name : D:\2016\Save\21.Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.mp4
Format : MPEG-4
Format profile : Base Media
Codec ID : isom (isom/iso2/avc1/mp41)
File size : 471 MiB
Duration : 40 min 59 s
Overall bit rate : 1 607 kb/s
Encoded date : UTC 1970-01-01 00:00:00
Tagged date : UTC 1970-01-01 00:00:00
Writing application : Lavf53.24.2
Xtra : WM/MediaClassPrimaryID

Video
ID : 1
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : Baseline@L3.1
Format settings : 1 Ref Frames
Format settings, CABAC : No
Format settings, RefFrames : 1 frame
Format settings, GOP : M=1, N=12
Codec ID : avc1
Codec ID/Info : Advanced Video Coding
Duration : 40 min 59 s
Bit rate : 1 483 kb/s
Width : 720 pixels
Height : 576 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 4:3
Frame rate mode : Constant
Frame rate : 25.000 FPS
Standard : PAL
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.143
Stream size : 432 MiB (92%)
Writing library : x264 core 120
Encoding settings : cabac=0 / ref=1 / deblock=1:0:0 / analyse=0x1:0x111 / me=dia / subme=7 / psy=1 / psy_rd=1.00:0.00 / mixed_ref=0 / me_range=4 / chroma_me=0 / trellis=0 / 8x8dct=0 / cqm=0 / deadzone=21,11 / fast_pskip=1 / chroma_qp_offset=-2 / threads=8 / sliced_threads=0 / nr=0 / decimate=1 / interlaced=0 / bluray_compat=0 / constrained_intra=0 / bframes=0 / weightp=0 / keyint=12 / keyint_min=7 / scenecut=0 / intra_refresh=0 / rc_lookahead=12 / rc=abr / mbtree=1 / bitrate=1483 / ratetol=1.0 / qcomp=0.50 / qpmin=3 / qpmax=51 / qpstep=3 / ip_ratio=1.40 / aq=1:1.00
Language : English
Encoded date : UTC 1970-01-01 00:00:00
Tagged date : UTC 1970-01-01 00:00:00

Audio
ID : 2
Format : AAC
Format/Info : Advanced Audio Codec
Format profile : LC
Codec ID : mp4a-40-2
Duration : 40 min 59 s
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 128 kb/s
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Channel positions : Front: L R
Sampling rate : 48.0 kHz
Frame rate : 46.875 FPS (1024 SPF)
Compression mode : Lossy
Stream size : 37.5 MiB (8%)
Language : English
Default : Yes
Alternate group : 1
Encoded date : UTC 1970-01-01 00:00:00
Tagged date : UTC 1970-01-01 00:00:00

[culssw]

When I check the contents on the FreeNAS server using Samba, most get a 4:3 icon,
but some get a 16:9 icon, and when I tested one of them, it actually played in full-screen.
I guess this means that the anamorphic property is available to the converter program.

When recording from TV, this information is not available to the PVR, so it records
as square pixels, even if the broadcast is anamorphic.

Since the pre-Tizen Samsung application has way of expanding 4:3 to full screen,
even is the MPEG-4 file contents does not indicate this, why not make this possible
also in the official PLEX client?

[culssw]

Tried converting a 40 minutes show on a Core-i7 940 w an ATI Radeon HD 4800
This took 15-20 minutes, and the size increased from
471 MB (494113777 byte) to
592 MB (620988756 byte).

Original file was 720x576, PAR:16:15
Set it to custom Anamorphic, Modulus 2, Display Width 1024, PAR 512:351.

Now it plays properly on the TV, but converting 15-20,000 files, would take a year, if done 24/7. With a 26% increase in space, and maybe reduced quality, it is really not an attractive solution.