Aspect Ratio

I’m using my Apple TV with a 5 yr old “standard” 43" Toshiba. Because ATV is made for HD widescreen TV’s, everything on my TV is stretched vertically. Would be nice to add a menu to allow ATV to function with different TV aspect ratios.

I have the opposite problem. 4:3 content doesn’t display properly. I have the option on my CRT to trigger 16:9 mode. If 4:3 content were stretched to fill the 16:9 screen, disabling 16:9 mode would restore a proper 4:3 aspect ratio. Right now, for this content, there’s a huge black bar on the left side of the screen.

I found the solution to my problem. Adding the following argument to mplayer now fills my screen:
-aspect
16:10

Although it’s a 16:9 screen space, the 16:9 value made the picture too wide. Weird. Luckily, my 4:3 tube has a 16:9 mode. Finally, I found this simple solution. You should check and see whether or not your TV has a similar option. If my off-brand Advent tube can do this, I’d hope that Toshiba boxes can do the same.

I wonder what -aspect 4:3 would do. It probably wouldn’t work, but it’s worth a shot.