im trying to get the aspect ratio from the nfo file. (aspect ratio without black bars). if i use $INFO[VideoPlayer.VideoAspect] always reports 1.78:1. if i use $INFO[ListItem.VideoAspect] it is always blank.
is it possible to parse data from the nfo file diring playback?
The question you’re asking here about the skinning engine are best asked over at the Kodi forum. This is not OSMC specific.
thats why i posted it in the general section
The answer is: no. You won’t get the aspect ratio without black bars - the actual movie’s aspect ratio - as the infolabel only shows file information.
ListItem infolabels will mostly stay empty as they’re for use outside the audio and video player.
Please do refer to the Kodi forum for skinning engine specific questions.
Just a FYI, the answer is actually Yes:
in MyVideoNav.xml add:
<onunload>SetProperty(nowplaying_videoaspect,$INFO[ListItem.VideoAspect],Home)</onunload>
and in VideoFullScreen.xml add:
$INFO[Window(Home).Property(nowplaying_videoaspect)]
I’m wondering why you’re showing this in the first place… The player process info dialog is showing this information without relying on some file information from the database, but rather live information from what the decoder is doing. This is kind of redundant.
But if the video player aspect ratio infolabel should indeed only show the output aspect ratio and not the aspect ratio of the video file played back, it should probably be reported to the Kodi devs. This sounds like a bug. Another reason to post this on the Kodi forum 
because i believe in ascetics, and the aspect ratio the movie was shot in is more accurate then the filled screen size!
not to mention the player process dialog is horrendous, and confusing to say the least!
Well, the actual movie aspect ratio you’ll not get, at least currently, from Kodi as neither the database nor the video player know which pixels are black bars and which pixels are movie information.
Again, not true. I use TMM for my database creation and manually set the aspectratio to what is was filmed at!, NOT what mediainfo reports. So yes i do get the real aspectratio.
Ok, by telling Kodi explicitly. What I meant was that Kodi would never know itself. As it’s then relying on users configuring their database in this very specific way, it’s not feasible for general use. A skin should not rely on too specific manual setup requirements - it’s basically the same as media flags relying on tons of naming conventions for bitrate, HDR, etc. like a few Kodi skins do.
But the compromise between ease of use/setup and amount of specific and on point features is what each skinner has to decide on.
I’ve marked one of your posts as the solution which I understand you’ve found over at the Kodi forum. 
Does this just change what’s shown in skin or does it change what Kodi API reports for aspect ratio to 3rd party control systems. I am trying to have my Control 4 System change lens memory based on actual aspect ratio of what playing. I have correct AR in my .nfo files and skin but Kodi still reports everything as 1.78 to control 4
this change uses the aspect tag in the .nfo file for the skin. the api i beleve uses the aspect ratio from the video player, it will always report 1.78:1(16x9) because it has no concept of the black bars vs the video picture itself.
a fun fact in some movies there are multiple aspect ratios, and TMM has the ability to use both or the more common. so it is sometimes wrong and needed to be manually changed. it was a struggle for me as well for quite some time, i ended up just not using the tag at all.
