Hello,
I want to use Stretch because all my videos are in standard PAL format. Some videos are 16:9, but many are 4:3 format. If I output via HDMI, the PAL image has too few pixels to fill the screen. This makes upscaling necessary. Right now, my only option is to use Crop, but this mode cuts off the top and bottom of the video.
I can't see how Stretch mode reduces quality by more than Crop. In effect, in Crop mode, there is even
less quality than in Stretch mode, when playing back 4:3 videos. This is because there is something like 11% less of the original pixels to fill the screen.... Less pixels, less quality.
Since I have to lose quality anyway, would it not be better to fill the screen without the cropping, so that at least I have
all of the original pixels to show on screen? I would prefer to have that option.
Incidentally, when the first standards converters from PAL to NTSC were made, the cheap ones used to crop off the extra lines that PAL videos had... Until people noticed that foreheads and text graphics were all cut off!
Thanks,
Tony, an old TV engineer
![wink ;)](./images/smilies/icon_wink.gif)