480i 16:9 content squished

[seancullinan]

Hi,

I just received my SiliconDust HDHomeRun Flex Duo 2 and it seems amazing. But I have one problem: my local CBS and ABC affiliates here in the United States Virgin Islands still transmit in 480i. But they at least transmit at 16:9 aspect ratio so it's not so bad normally. My Hisense, Samsung and LG TV's have never had a problem with this and always displayed the content at 16:9 despite the 480i feed. But the HDHomeRun is squishing the content into a 4:3 box. The zoom button doesn't solve the problem because it doesn't just stretch the picture horizontally it also zooms in vertically. Note that my other channels that are in true HD all work fine it's just these 2 signals but CBS and ABC are 2 of the main reasons I have an antenna so it's a pretty nasty issue.

Here's what it looks like (notice the circled CBS logo that shows the squish factor very well):
http://www.kerrikelly.com/squish.png

Anyone have any thoughts on how to fix this??

Thanks,

Sean

[nickk]

We sometimes see broadcasters send 16:9 480i content with the aspect ratio field set to 4:3. Some televisions stretch 4:3 content out to fill the screen ignoring the aspect ratio information.

1) What client platform are you using to watch TV from your HDHomeRun?

2) On your TVs playing direct from antenna - suggest checking other 480i channels - look for any where the content is 4:3 stretched to 16:9 (ie everything is wider than it should be)

3) If you make a 60 second capture we can take a look at the aspect ratio information:
http://hdhomerun.local:5004/auto/v2.1?duration=60
(replace 2.1 with the problem channel number)

Nick

[ebo]

Also, if you have a Windows PC on the LAN with your HDHR, you can install TSReader Lite (it's free). It will give you all the technical details of ATSC 1.0 broadcasts, including the flagged aspect ratios. It doesn't work for ATSC 3.0 and probably never will.

[seancullinan]

nickk,

Thanks for the quick response!

To answer your questions:
1) What client platform are you using to watch TV from your HDHomeRun?
>> I've done this on Android (TV, Phone and Tablet) as well as the Windows Store app. And the attached video is also squished which came from the URL you provided

2) On your TVs playing direct from antenna - suggest checking other 480i channels - look for any where the content is 4:3 stretched to 16:9 (ie everything is wider than it should be)
>> Yes I think I've seen this. Personally I'd rather have 4:3 content stretched to 16:9 than 16:9 content squished to 4:3 though so I probably never really noticed. There isn't much I would watch anymore in 4:3 either.

3) If you make a 60 second capture we can take a look at the aspect ratio information:
http://hdhomerun.local:5004/auto/v2.1?duration=60
(replace 2.1 with the problem channel number)
>> Here you go: [removed by moderator]

Sean

[seancullinan]

Also, if you have a Windows PC on the LAN with your HDHR, you can install TSReader Lite (it's free). It will give you all the technical details of ATSC 1.0 broadcasts, including the flagged aspect ratios. It doesn't work for ATSC 3.0 and probably never will.

Thanks I downloaded it and selected the HD Home Run Prime device and it didn't find it. Now it just starts and I get an empty channel listing and when I hit cancel it quits and I can't seem to do anything to reconfigure it. Any thoughts on how I can get this going?

Sean

[nickk]

Thanks for the capture - confirmed problem in the broadcast where the broadcast is signalling that the content is 4:3 aspect ratio.

If you play that capture in VLC you will see the same problem as VLC follows the aspect ratio specified in the content.

The next step is to contact the TV station to let them know that this channel is reporting 4:3 in the headers where it should be reporting 16:9.

Nick

[yurguis]

Also, if you have a Windows PC on the LAN with your HDHR, you can install TSReader Lite (it's free). It will give you all the technical details of ATSC 1.0 broadcasts, including the flagged aspect ratios. It doesn't work for ATSC 3.0 and probably never will.

Thanks I downloaded it and selected the HD Home Run Prime device and it didn't find it. Now it just starts and I get an empty channel listing and when I hit cancel it quits and I can't seem to do anything to reconfigure it. Any thoughts on how I can get this going?

Sean

If you need to select a new source just hold down Shift or Ctrl key (can't remember which one) while starting TSReader, if done correctly it should display the device selection screen.

[seancullinan]

Also, if you have a Windows PC on the LAN with your HDHR, you can install TSReader Lite (it's free). It will give you all the technical details of ATSC 1.0 broadcasts, including the flagged aspect ratios. It doesn't work for ATSC 3.0 and probably never will.

Thanks I downloaded it and selected the HD Home Run Prime device and it didn't find it. Now it just starts and I get an empty channel listing and when I hit cancel it quits and I can't seem to do anything to reconfigure it. Any thoughts on how I can get this going?

Sean

If you need to select a new source just hold down Shift or Ctrl key (can't remember which one) while starting TSReader, if done correctly it should display the device selection screen.

Thanks Ctrl Did it. I'm not really sure which model to select. Prime ends up just showing me a blank channel selection box. Any thoughts? My model isn't specifically shown (HDHomeRun Flex Duo 2).

Sean

[seancullinan]

Thanks for the capture - confirmed problem in the broadcast where the broadcast is signalling that the content is 4:3 aspect ratio.

If you play that capture in VLC you will see the same problem as VLC follows the aspect ratio specified in the content.

The next step is to contact the TV station to let them know that this channel is reporting 4:3 in the headers where it should be reporting 16:9.

Nick

Nick,

Yep I saw it in VLC as well. I was afraid you'd say this. This station is run out of Pennsylvania I believe remotely...we are a very small community in the US Virgin Islands and in the past I've not been able to track down anyone and talk to them. They are owned by Lilly broadcasting so maybe I'll try their corporate office in the morning. I actually work in the TV industry so maybe can use some of those connections (I used to direct TV News at WMDT in Salisbury and have spent the last 20 years developing the ENPS newsroom system so I've spent a lot of time with TV engineers ).

As a backup...there is no way in the software to do horizontal stretching to override this bad data is there? My TV's seem to automatically do this and my older TV's back in the day always had a button that let me fix this bad aspect ratio...It would be a good backup for when this happens I imagine.

Thanks,

Sean

[ebo]

Thanks I downloaded it and selected the HD Home Run Prime device and it didn't find it. Now it just starts and I get an empty channel listing and when I hit cancel it quits and I can't seem to do anything to reconfigure it. Any thoughts on how I can get this going?

Sean

If you need to select a new source just hold down Shift or Ctrl key (can't remember which one) while starting TSReader, if done correctly it should display the device selection screen.

Thanks Ctrl Did it. I'm not really sure which model to select. Prime ends up just showing me a blank channel selection box. Any thoughts? My model isn't specifically shown (HDHomeRun Flex Duo 2).

Sean

Don't select Prime; it's cable only. For US broadcast (including the Virgin Islands I presume) select HDHomeRun_8VSB.

BTW, it's good that you have a 2 tuner Flex, not 4 tuner. The TSReader site says it won't work well with the 4 tuner versions because the HDHR's 100 Mbps output isn't fast enough for the way TSReader works. That surprised me because I thought TSReader just used one tuner at a time, although it does pull in an entire broadcast channel, not just a single subchannel..

[seancullinan]

If you need to select a new source just hold down Shift or Ctrl key (can't remember which one) while starting TSReader, if done correctly it should display the device selection screen.

Thanks Ctrl Did it. I'm not really sure which model to select. Prime ends up just showing me a blank channel selection box. Any thoughts? My model isn't specifically shown (HDHomeRun Flex Duo 2).

Sean

Don't select Prime; it's cable only. For US broadcast (including the Virgin Islands I presume) select HDHomeRun_8VSB.

BTW, it's good that you have a 2 tuner Flex, not 4 tuner. The TSReader site says it won't work well with the 4 tuner versions because the HDHR's 100 Mbps output isn't fast enough for the way TSReader works. That surprised me because I thought TSReader just used one tuner at a time, although it does pull in an entire broadcast channel, not just a single subchannel..

Fantastic, that worked perfectly! What a cool tool. I haven't played around with MPEG transport streams in 20 years...love that I can do this so easily and it makes it very easy and clear to see what is coming in which is incorrect. I guess TV makers have just started to stretch everything horizontally so I never noticed until I got the HDHomeRun which doesn't. I've reached out to the TV station and provided them the data I got from TSReader. I am skeptical that they will follow up...we kind of don't get any love down here in the islands and I suspect that they don't even have an employee here (I've been here 20 years and have never met anyone who works for them) but operate this station fully remote and have to fly someone in to make transmitter changes.

Thanks for all the help with TS Reader!

Sean

[seancullinan]

FWIW I found the Live Channels app on my Android TV's and it works great as it supports the HD HomeRun as a "Network Tuner" and also has a "Full" option that stretches the content horizontally. Overall I'm very impressed with the HD Home Run product. I did not expect it to perform as well as it does...switching channels is as fast as a normal tuner and not having to run new RG6 throughout my house which would be challenging with concrete walls in many places due to hurricane codes is a huge plus. Now all of my TV's have access to my OTA content which is fantastic!