XLobby DVD Coverart resolution capped?

by **joeb** on Tue Oct 03, 2006 1:42 pm

I spent some time getting some high-resolution DVD Coverart (700x1000) for display through XLobby. My TV is a 1080p LCD TV, and I have the image object in my XLobby skin sized to exactly 700x1000 as well (so it shouldn't be doing any resizing).

However, the images look awful in XLobby, blocky, pixelated, and loss of detail. In fact, lower-res images tend to look better! I know Xlobby caches images, but is it also down-res'ing them? What is the largest image resolution that XLobby brings in without altering it?

by **tswhite70** on Tue Oct 03, 2006 4:59 pm

As far as I can tell the Cache version of the image is the exact image regardless of resolution. You can double check by opening some of the Cache images with your favorite jpg viewer and comparing them to the originals.

Are you outputting to your tv at 1920x1080? What's your Xlobby skin res? My only other suggestion would be to change the size of your coverart display item/button in Xlobby a little - maybe it's having trouble because it's an exact match...

good luck,
tsw

by **Colby** on Tue Oct 03, 2006 8:35 pm

If you are talking about the thumbnails for a dvd category, yes they are lower resolution. I Think this came about with the category selection "enlarge". Mine look crappy and pixelated too in the category. But when i use a variable category>movies>cover, they look fine.

by **joeb** on Tue Oct 10, 2006 5:12 am

Well...this is still a problem. It seems Xlobby caps cover images at 500 lines of resolution. I went into the cache folder, added ".jpg" as an extension to a bunch of covers, and they were all 500 lines or less tall. Some of my images I'm importing are 1000 lines, so Xlobby is definitely down-res'ing.

Steve, can you confirm that this is the case? As more and more people get 1080 capable displays, we're going to want larger and higher res coverart. I understand caching was done to improve performance, but it really shouldn't be down-res'ing covers.

by **S Pittaway** on Tue Oct 10, 2006 6:41 am

have you tried category>movies>originalcoverart?

I use this and i aways get a far sharper image than using cover alone...

i was assuming that cover was the cached version and originalcoverart gave the un-compressed version?

It wont help with category views but i would have thoght 500 pixels would be fine for there...

Sean.

by **joeb** on Tue Oct 10, 2006 4:15 pm

S Pittaway wrote:have you tried category>movies>originalcoverart?

I use this and i aways get a far sharper image than using cover alone...

i was assuming that cover was the cached version and originalcoverart gave the un-compressed version?

It wont help with category views but i would have thoght 500 pixels would be fine for there...

Sean.

Geez...didn't even realize that variable existed (I built the first draft of my skin before the caching feature was added I think)! I'll give it a shot when I get home.

Thanks much, Sean.