[kgveteran]

So, inorder to do a vertical stretch.... Choices are: BR player, out board processor, Projector..... HTPC....

Is anyone better than another ? I hate to ask this, is one the best ?

 

[stanger89]

It all depends, depends on what the actual video processor in each is.

Lumagen makes among the best video processors available, and is likely better than most projectors or Blu-ray players, but if you've got a really high end projector (Sim2, etc) it may not be an improvement. Likewise with an Oppo, I'm not sure what they use, but I think it's pretty good.

HTPCs, depends on the software, it can range from not possible, to terrible, to best of the best (madVR).

Of course there's only one of these, the Lumagen (maybe some other external processors) that can stretch anything, regardless of source. Displays and players tend to disable (or be incapable of) stretch for 3D for example. Retail PC software I think can't stretch, but "free" software can, but that requires ripping/decrypting Blu-rays. I don't think streamers or PCs can stretch streaming content (Netflix, etc). A Lumagen can stretch all of that.

 

[rboster]

Here's an existing thread that maybe helpful

http://www.avsforum.com/forum/117-2...cal-stretching-projector-video-processor.html

 

[jsjenkins]

Last week I did some close comparisons between the vertical stretch function on my JVC X90 and stretch using my HTPC, and found the HTPC to be ever so slightly better but the difference was minimal. Most video card drivers will allow you to set a custom resolution (in my case, I set 1920x816), and then set the aspect ratio setting to "stretch" (or sometimes called "fill"). An even better option is to use a video player which can utilize madVR to do scaling as you have much finer control over scaling algorithms, etc. The downside of HTPC vs projector stretching is performance; you'll need a decently powerful machine to do fancy software-based scaling whereas the projector scaling happens downstream.