Aspect ratio

[kshavo]

I am trying to use mezzmo with Roku. When I choose an mpg or vob the top and bottom of the screen get cut off. I tried this.
Right-click on the video in Mezzmo and click Pre-transcode Files.
On the Pre-transcode Files dialog, select your devices and click Choose Formats.
On the Pre-transcode Formats dialog, select the bolded format.
On the Pre-transcode Formats dialog, right-click on the selected File Format and choose the aspect ratio you wish to apply to your video.
But there was not an mpg option to choose. Can you help?

[Peter]

Hi,
the Roku does not support mpg so Mezzmo must transcode the files so that they can be played on the Roku. When you say the top and bottom of the screen get cut off does the video show correctly with the aspect ratio of the video in proportion? Devices may show black bars to keep the video in the correct aspect ratio if it is not exactly 1920x1080 so this might be the case here, can you please check the properties of the video in Mezzmo to see what the resolution of the video is?

[kshavo]

Thank you for responding. The video I am trying to play is 720x480. No matter what I adjust in Mezzmo, in regard to formats and transcoding, nothing changes. There are bars on the side of the screen but not on top.

[Peter]

For 720x480 this is correct, the video when tall enough to fit the screen is not wide enough to fill the screen so it is showing black bars in the areas where it is not able to fill the screen.

[smitbret]

Thank you for responding. The video I am trying to play is 720x480. No matter what I adjust in Mezzmo, in regard to formats and transcoding, nothing changes. There are bars on the side of the screen but not on top.

You should see bars on the sides of the screens. 720x480 is a W x H ratio of 1.5. Modern, flat panel TVs have a ratio of 1.78.

If you had a picture of 720x480 to fill the screen, the only two way to do it would be to stretch (and distort) everything making it all look short and fat. The only other way would be to cut portions (crop) the top 38 and bottom 38 pixels of the current picture so that that it would match the screen ration of 1.78 (720x404).

[kshavo]

I was looking for a simple way to play the DVD's I have ripped onto my hard drive. It appears that Mezzmo is not the answer.

[Peter]

If you play one of the DVDs on a DVD player you should get the same aspect ratio with the black bars at the sides, Mezzmo is simply streaming the same video content to the device so I think you have achieved your goal in finding a simple way to play the DVDs.