# Amazon Zoomed Aspect Ratio



## V7Goose (May 28, 2005)

Just an observation of some strange behavior I have seen with Amazon - I post it here in case others might be seeing it too.

My Bolt is set to a fixed 1080i output, and it has been working correctly with all OTA channels with my HDTV. I have started watching a good amount of Amazon Prime over the past month, and _most_ things have functioned well and looked fine. I do get a fair amount of random video freezing on almost every Amazon program I watch, but this is overcome by a quick RR-then-Play button press that starts it playing again normally each time.

Here is the strangeness: On two recent movies (_Son of a Gun_ and _Mission Impossible_), watched a week or two apart, the screen was obviously zoomed in so that what should have been an HD wide-screen letterboxed display was over expanded to fill the screen vertically and cut off the sides - this GREATLY irritated me, so much so that I was trying to figure out who to excoriate for such disgusting butchery. But to get my facts straight before I started blasting, I tested the same movies with my old Sony BR player that also has an Amazon App, and that device displayed those two movies correctly - Ah-Ha, says I, TiVo screwed up again! But when I went straight over to my Bolt to re-verify the foul display yesterday, I found nothing but constant red-screen errors ALL day, preventing me from doing the needed testing. Those red screen errors also locked up my Bolt solid numerous times, causing me to have to power-cycle it.

Fast-forward to this morning, and Amazon is again working just fine on my Bolt. And surprise, surprise, those two movies that I had been forced to watch is bloated zoom mode were now being displayed perfectly in normal wide-screen letterbox format. And my Bolt has not picked up any new software in the past day - still running 20.6.3 RC7.

So, I have no idea what caused the zoomed display when I originally watched those two movies - maybe it was an internal error with the Bolt app? Maybe it was an error at Amazon? Maybe the power-cycle reboots of the Bolt yesterday fixed it, even though the Bolt app could not play any Amazon video all day? I just do not know. But if I ever see that nonsense again, the first thing I will do is re-boot the Bolt to see if it clears up and displays a normal HD picture without a disgusting zoom.


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## HerronScott (Jan 1, 2002)

I thought this was caused by being set to zoom mode before going into the Amazon app but I couldn't make it happen just now. 

Scott


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## V7Goose (May 28, 2005)

Ding, Ding, Ding - We have a Winner - the problem IS a BUG in the TiVo!!!!

Just sat down to watch some old TV series (I watch a lot of old stuff on SD channels that is displayed in both pillar/letter box format), and as i used the TiVo zoom button to adjust the aspect ration of one of those old programs, I wondered it somehow that was what screwed up the Amazon video? YES, it was.

While watching an Amazon stream, you cannot use the TiVo zoom button to change the aspect ratio - it will just kick you back to TiVo Central. But I found that if you have zoomed the screen BEFORE you launch the Amazon app, even though the Amazon menus look fine, when I start watching a program, then THAT video is also zoomed when it should NOT be.

The solution is to go back to normal TV mode, UN-zoom the picture, then re-start the Amazon app.


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## V7Goose (May 28, 2005)

HerronScott said:


> I thought this was caused by being set to zoom mode before going into the Amazon app but I couldn't make it happen just now.
> 
> Scott


Actually, as I was posting at the same time, you are absolutely correct - I just stumbled on that and was able to duplicate it multiple times. But maybe it only affects some program streams (such as those movies I watched), and not all programs?


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## jrtroo (Feb 4, 2008)

Yep, its been there since forever on both netflix and amazon.


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## lpwcomp (May 6, 2002)

Why the heck are you warping the picture of an old TV show?


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## V7Goose (May 28, 2005)

lpwcomp said:


> Why the heck are you warping the picture of an old TV show?


Read it again. I am NOT warping the picture of any show - I am one of the folks who believe that ALL programs should be watched in EXACTLY the same format and shape as they were originally created; when stations decide to modify the picture to fit a specific screen size, I consider that a crime against all intelligent people.

I watch a lot of programs on SD channels that broadcast ALL of their content formatted for 4:3 screens (which is a pillarbox display on a 16:9 TV), and thankfully, several of these channels do not butcher the picture by using Pan&Scan or cropping when they show something originally created in widescreen, so those programs ate shown in letterbox within the 4:3 pillarbox (that is a widescreen picture with black bars on all four sides). In those cases, the zoom button is useful to show the whole picture in the ORIGINAL aspect ratio on the big screen HDTV.

I knew that TiVo disables the zoom function when switching to a digital widescreen source channel, and I WRONGLY assumed they would be smart enough to also do this when switching to a digital stream source as well.


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## TonyD79 (Jan 4, 2002)

Can't really call it a bug. It is how it works. How it was designed. It may not be a great method but it is working as designed. The problem is using the format button to bail out of streaming. But, again, by design.


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## cybergrimes (Jun 15, 2015)

Getting off topic but this reminds me of how closed captioning works on the HBO Go app where you have to turn CC on with live or recorded content before launching the HBO app otherwise there's no option to turn it on. It's unlike every other platform where it's a player option within the app itself...


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## lpwcomp (May 6, 2002)

TonyD79 said:


> Can't really call it a bug. It is how it works. How it was designed. It may not be a great method but it is working as designed. The problem is using the format button to bail out of streaming. But, again, by design.


It's either a bug or Amazon isn't streaming properly. When I am watching a program that has the proper display information. the TiVo "Zoom" button is ignored.


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## lpwcomp (May 6, 2002)

V7Goose said:


> Read it again. I am NOT warping the picture of any show - I am one of the folks who believe that ALL programs should be watched in EXACTLY the same format and shape as they were originally created; when stations decide to modify the picture to fit a specific screen size, I consider that a crime against all intelligent people.


That was far from obvious in your original post. It drives me crazy when people "Zoom" 4:3 pillar box content because it is "wasting space". What MeTV is doing is an absolute abomination since there is no way for the viewer to undo it.


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## HerronScott (Jan 1, 2002)

lpwcomp said:


> That was far from obvious in your original post. It drives me crazy when people "Zoom" 4:3 pillar box content because it is "wasting space". .


In his defense, I understood what he meant based on him mentioning being in both pillar/letterbox format in the following from his post. 

"Just sat down to watch some old TV series (I watch a lot of old stuff on SD channels that is displayed in both pillar/letter box format), and as i used the TiVo zoom button to adjust the aspect ration of one of those old programs"



lpwcomp said:


> What MeTV is doing is an absolute abomination since there is no way for the viewer to undo it.


I just noticed this when trying to test being in Zoom mode on an SD channel before opening the Amazon app!

Scott


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