Automatic black fields cut-off

[iCryo]

It would be awesome to implement this feature.
It's not comfortable to watch 16:9 content on 4:3 channel on 16:9 screen — plenty of 4:3 channels showing content in different formats, such as 16:9, 21:9, letterbox, etc...
Cutting function in dvbdream is already present, but it's hard to use every time program changes format.

[iCryo]

Found similar old (2007) topic: http://www.dvbdream.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=2602

A very cool feature I would LOVE is AUTO ZOOM on letterboxed content. My old plasma TV had this feature on its S-Video input and it worked great for a standalone sat receiver. Now I am using DVI with a PC to my plasma and this feature is not available via DVI input. The TV was 16:9 widescreen, but many North American programs now are 4:3 letterboxed (such as MythBusters). This means the video is 4:3, but has black bars on top and bottom to make it widescreen. This is VERY annoying, because this results in a huge black border on all sides of the picture leaving only a 34" picture on my 50" TV!

I'm not sure how the AUTO ZOOM algorithm worked, but I think it looked for bars on the top & bottom of a certain size with an average brightness below a certain level (dark gray bars also triggered it sometimes), and if they remain long enough (about 2-seconds), this triggered the TV into zoom mode so the letterboxed 4:3 fully fills a 16:9 widescreen. Once activity was detected in the letterbox areas (i.e. a 4:3 commercial that fills the entire 4:3 display area), the display would un-zoom.

Btw, similar function is implemented in p**gdvb, but I think dvbdream is the best.