WizTV a waste?

Teddles · Post by **Teddles** » Tue Dec 30, 2008 16:33

Just some feedback from a totally underwhelmed user.

After an initial flurry of activity accessing WizTV, I've realised I haven't used it now in weeks! The reason? There is absolutely nothing there of any interest to me!

Surely there is more interesting things planned - yes??

IanSav · Post by **IanSav** » Tue Dec 30, 2008 16:46

Hi Teddles,

I would expect WizTV content to grow over time.

Regards,
Ian.

grl · Post by **grl** » Tue Dec 30, 2008 19:44

I'm with Teddles - haven't looked for over a week. II checked it out initially, and then when they changed the weather format, but that's it.

duke · Post by **duke** » Wed Dec 31, 2008 14:33

I check it out at least once a day to see if something pops up in the VIP bit.

paulm · Post by **paulm** » Mon Feb 16, 2009 11:36

duke wrote:I check it out at least once a day to see if something pops up in the VIP bit.

Has anything popped up?

I'd completely forgotten about WizTV. There's not much talk in this forum so I guess there's not much interest?

hawk_eyes · Post by **hawk_eyes** » Mon Feb 16, 2009 12:33

I check the weather updates and the sport headlines, it's handy to just pop up WizTV and get a quick brief on what the weather will be like for the next day and the week.

peteru · Post by **peteru** » Mon Feb 16, 2009 20:54

There is a hidden feature at the WizTV main menu.

tonymy01 · Post by **tonymy01** » Mon Feb 16, 2009 21:07

Ooh, the cone of silence has a crack in it...

crippstor · Post by **crippstor** » Tue Feb 17, 2009 05:55

Any chance we might be able to find out how to access the hidden feature, promise we won't tell anyone

tonymy01 · Post by **tonymy01** » Tue Feb 17, 2009 07:08

WizTV supports intercepting nearly all remote control buttons.

netmask · Post by **netmask** » Tue Feb 17, 2009 08:13

Yes I stumbled on that menu - I would have been happier if....... but I will keep my lips sealed.

tonymy01 · Post by **tonymy01** » Tue Feb 17, 2009 08:37

Works fine for me, and proves the Wiz can display an image on screen while (hourglass...grrr) loading another. Mind you, the image is likely server side downsized to fill the screen only, and thus uses less WIz memory.

crippstor · Post by **crippstor** » Tue Feb 17, 2009 12:08

Very interesting, funny choice of remote button I thought.
Anyway, back on topic, I use the service a lot for weather and news headlines, also Wiz gadgets about once a week. Look forward to any new devlopments.

glow · Post by **glow** » Tue Feb 17, 2009 12:27

I still get the hourglass when wiztv loads the next pic as I press the right arrow.
How are you skipping the hourglass?
The aspect ratio's ratio is also off.

Anyway, it's an interesting application although I'd prefer to have the fileplayer's photo viewer fixed up first.

tonymy01 · Post by **tonymy01** » Tue Feb 17, 2009 13:04

I never said you wouldn't get the hourglass. But do a normal JPG slideshow, and you will also get a black screen between images. The aspect ratio works fine for me, I have the Wiz setup as 16:9 and my photos are 4:3 and the Wiz correctly pillarboxes the images.
Regards

glow · Post by **glow** » Tue Feb 17, 2009 13:47

Sorry Tony, I misread your original comment about loading the images. Now I see the slight improvement.

Regarding the aspect ratio, I have my wiz set up as 4:3 and WizTV has always looked odd and pillarboxed. Now with these photos I can see that indeed WizTV is not correctly displaying on a 4:3 TV.

So how is this working? Does WizTV take the original and resize it before sending it to the Wiz? Could it do something similar with video and say re-encode flash video to something the Wiz can decode? (I'm thinking youtube, ABC iview...)

tonymy01 · Post by **tonymy01** » Tue Feb 17, 2009 13:54

So do you have letterbox or P&S/centre cut as your TV preference in the setup menu? I haven't tried these aspect ratios much lately (given i have a 16:9 screen).
Regards

Scumbag · Post by **Scumbag** » Tue Feb 17, 2009 14:30

glow wrote:I still get the hourglass when wiztv loads the next pic as I press the right arrow.
How are you skipping the hourglass?

I'm not aware you can - unless there is an enhancement in the new beta. I think the point was that the screen didn't go blank while loading the next image. But you do get the ugly Loading panel with the hourglass right in the middle of the screen.

glow wrote:The aspect ratio's ratio is also off.

I'm surprised of that.

WizTV is rendered into a 1280*720 window regardless of the screen resolution - then separately resized/cropped/whatever to fit into the screen resolution. Maybe WizTV is mucking the aspect ratio.

glow wrote:Anyway, it's an interesting application although I'd prefer to have the fileplayer's photo viewer fixed up first.

This was written independently of the BeyonWiz developers. Leaving them time to fix the fileplayer photo viewer or whatever else.

madmax · Post by **madmax** » Tue Feb 17, 2009 14:34

Scumbag wrote:This was written independently of the BeyonWiz developers. Leaving them time to fix the fileplayer photo viewer

Well they have the time, but what they don't have is a way.....

peteru · Post by **peteru** » Tue Feb 17, 2009 15:04

The WizTV aspect ratio problem on 4:3 TVs is a direct result of implementing one of the features on the wishlist which asked for OSD to fill a 4:3 screen, instead of using the standard letterbox format.

You can't have your 4:3 cake and eat it too.

netmask · Post by **netmask** » Tue Feb 17, 2009 15:29

looks reasonable on my LCD - after working out how to set it up the other end as I didn't have it installed on my PC. And whooo! it started to inspect my entire setup - no way!

glow · Post by **glow** » Tue Feb 17, 2009 19:18

peteru wrote:The WizTV aspect ratio problem on 4:3 TVs is a direct result of implementing one of the features on the wishlist which asked for OSD to fill a 4:3 screen, instead of using the standard letterbox format.

You can't have your 4:3 cake and eat it too.

Ok, I asked for OSDs like setup menus and file player to be full screen on 4:3 rather than letterboxed since it only makes them more legible since it's only text not pictures. I can see how the logic could have been changed so that the OSD is the same regardless of the aspect ratio.
However I don't see why WizTV should have to be the same. At the moment WizTV is pillarboxed on my 4:3 TVand looks vertically stretched (or horizontally squashed) the same as my regular TV picture if I select 16:9.
It seems WizTV would look better if stretched to the full width of a 4:3 screen, the same as if I used 4:3 pan scan on a 16:9 picture.

It would even be acceptable in the short term if the zoom key also changed the aspect ratio of WizTV just like live TV (but agent 86 am I allowed to say what happens if I try?)

WizTV a waste?

WizTV a waste?

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