So I just started using Netflix on my WDTV Live Plus. I’ve been using my Live Plus to play ISOs for a while and have used Netflix on other devices in past but never here. I have my Live Plus set up on a 16:9 display, so I do have Widescreen selected under the Audio/Video settings. Normally when a play back 4:3 ISOs, the Live Plus will pillarbox the video so it is proportionally displayed on my screen. I prefer this to stretching so nothing is distorted. When I tried to play back 4:3 Netflix content, it stretched it instead of pillarboxing. Is there any way to correct this? It’s really annoying. My TiVo handles the different aspect ratios for Netflix just fine so I know it’s not the content itself. I have a lot of TV shows in my queue that are 4:3 and I would love to watch them without all the stretching. Thanks.
DZ
Are you using Component / Composite / HDMI?
By the way, just because a TiVo shows it properly doesn’t mean much. NetFlix has a totally different set of encodes for TiVo versus the WD.
I’m using component, my HDMI port of my monitor is already in use. I know that the TiVo is a whole different thing but it was more to prove that the video was encoded correctly by Netflix, they didn’t actually encode the video stretched or anything. Should I try swapping for HDMI and see if that helps?
Ok. When I first tried NetFlix on my Live+, I was using component as well.
It turns out I had to change the mode of my TV to match the WDTV, since Component doesn’t provide a mechanism to signal the TV about the aspect ratio of the signal the same way that HDMI does.
Try changing the modes on your Television. No way of knowing what your TV will call it, but just try them all and see if you can find one that works.
Interesting. I tried it with HDMI and now it’s working fine. I’ll just use component for my cable receiver and all should be good. It’s weird, the component will detect aspect ratios for my own media (ISOs on the network) but not Netflix. At least this solves the problem. Thanks for you help!
