How to get best display on my TV

[FJC]

Please be gentle, I'm a newbie here. After playing around with SageTV on a 19" Sony in my study (connected via an RCA jack on my tv out card), I moved my HTPC to the family room where my plan is to connect it to my 53" Sony rear-project TV. First, here's my hardware in the HTPC:

2 PVR-250 cards
ATI 9600SE video card with vga/dvi/rca output
Component dongle for the ATI card (connects to the DVI output and gives component output)

I connected the HTPC to the big Sony via the RCA cable initially, just to test it out. All was fine (except the picture quality, as expected from an RCA connection). I set my display properties to clone the desktop, and the ATI display panels allowed me to adjust the screen size on the TV to fill the screen properly.

I then connected the ATI dongle to the DVI output, and to the Sony through one of the component inputs. After some fiddling with the ATI settings, it appeared that the output to the TV was locked at 720x480. Picture quality was much improved, but as it was cloning a 800x600 Windows desktop, only 720x480 of it was displayed (moving the mouse around resulted in the picture shifting/scrolling to display the missing areas).

If I set my Windows desktop to be 720x480 this problem disappeared, but then I noticed what I believe is called overscan - I was missing part of the display on all sizes. For example, the last digit of the time and the am/pm was cut off of the full screen display of SageTV's menu. Also, this resolution was horrible for Windows XP, as it's too small to properly display some control panels (for example, if I brought up Display Properties, I could not see or access the OK/CANCEL/APPLY buttons at the bottom).

Temporarily, I've changed the settings so that instead of cloning my desktop, the Sony TV is an extension of it. That allows me to run the computer monitor at 800x600, while the extension is 720x480. I still have the overscan problem, though.

Any advice? Keep in mind I'm very uneducated regarding TV resolutions and such. I believe my tv is cable of displaying 480i, 480p, and 1080i.

My goals are:
1) Eliminate the monitor, and just use the TV as the monitor as this is planned to be a dedicated SageTV box

2) Best picture possible, of course

I'm not running dscaler (should I be?), I pretty much have the default SageTV settings for video. The only software on the htpc are Windows XP SP1a, Java, Sage, the PVR-250 drivers, PowerDVD, and ATI Catalyst 3.9 drivers.

Thanks!

[stanger89]

Since you have the dongle I'd only connect 1 monitor (your TV through the dongle) and make sure all the dip switches (except 720p) on the dongle are switched to side with the DVI connector, hopefully this will give you access to 1776x1000i and 1920x1080i. 1776x1000i will probably be your best bet on a tv since it's basically 1920x1080i but with black around the sides to account for overscan in the TV.

[mikbro]

I have a Sony KP61hs10 (might you have the kp52hs10)? If so it has RGBHV input, which allows you to avoid the HDTV adapter and simply get a RGB breakout cable (15 pin RGB connector on one end, 5 separate RCA phono jacks on the other for Red, Blue, Green, Horizontal, and Vertical).

You can then use a program like Powerstrip to customize the timings of the display for the best results.

This thread on AVS forums is a good place to start with Powerstrip and RPTVs:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...ghlight=Karnis

[FJC]

I have the Sony KP53HS30 - I don't recall seeing HV inputs, but that may have just been an oversight on my part. I'll take another look tonight.

Thanks for the tips, I'll give stanger89's idea a try, and check what other inputs I have, and definitely check out that forum link.

Thanks, and feel free to keep the suggestions coming.

[FJC]

Well, setting my resolution to 1776x1000 sorta works, but isn't what I'm looking for - this is a 4:3 screen tv, not 16:9, and I prefer to view it in full screen mode (except when watching dvd's, when it goes into this mode).

Is there some sort of custom resolution I can set that would be the equivalent for 4:3? And what would I use to create such a custom resolution, is that what powerstrip is for?

I verified this evening that my TV does NOT have the rgbhv inputs, just component inputs.

Thanks for the continued help!

[stanger89]

Unfortunately the dongle has very limited Resolution support. But, if you can connect your TV via RGBHV like Mike suggested then there is hope. I run my 36" 4:3 RCA at 1280x1024i (if you think you have overscan problems my tv crops 1920x1080i to 4:3). Unfortunately you'll need a transcoder if you don't use the dongle.

My Powerstrip settings are based on this setting from the guide Mike linked:

PowerStrip timing parameters:
1280x1024i=1280,127,96,161,1024,43,3,55,56160,280

Generic timing details for 1280x1024:
HFP=127 HSW=96 HBP=161 kHz=34 VFP=43 VSW=3 VBP=55 Hz=30
interlace +hsync +vsync

They work very well for me, at full 1080i I loose about 1/3 of the picture L/R plus the whole windows taskbar, but the 1280x1024i setting I posted looks like it was meant for my TV.

Thinking about what you said:

except when watching dvd's, when it goes into this mode

do you mean the TV goes into squeeze mode automatically?

[FJC]

Unfortunately I do not have RGBHV inputs, just component inputs (and s-video and rca composite).

So right now I'm working in 720x480 mode, but I'd sure like some higher resolution (so that it's easier to work within Windows).

What would a transcoder do for me? Would this get me where I want to be (running a higher resolution, and getting rid of the overscan issues)?

Thanks for all the help. I've worked with computers for over 20 years, but getting their output onto TV screens is all new territory for me.

[stanger89]

The two I see mentioned a lot are from Audio Authority and Key Digital. Transcoders convert RGB (VGA) to YPbPr (Component) (or vice versa depending on what kind you get). While there's no guarantees, you should be able to run almost any resolution you want to through a transcoder, as long as your TV accepts it.

For example you should be able to run 1280x1024i through a transcoder. It's probably possible to do the same through the dongle but it seems ATI disables custom resolutions when using the dongle.

There's a lot of if's and should's in there and trancoders are kind of expensive but it's an option.

One last thing I'll note, most HDTVs only accept HDTV signals 1080i, 720p, 480p/i. But you can usually trick the TV by packaging another resolution inside something that looks like 1080i, that's what the 1024i res I posted above is. This works gread for me since my TV doesn't squeeze 1080i signals into a letterbox, if it did there would be no benefit to running 1280x1024i.

Just curious, how did your tv display 1000i? Was it letterboxed, fullscreen and sqeezed/cropped horizontally?

[FJC]

When I set the resolution to 1776x1000, it showed up on my tv as letterboxed. Horizontal seemed pretty close to right (though still some overscan - I could see about half of each icon on the left of the desktop). About the top 25% and bottom 25% of my screen was black, which is how the screen looks when I play a DVD from my DVD player.

Looks like I need to research transcoders...

[mikbro]

I know on my hs10 there is a way (via the service mode adjustment menus) to 'turn off' the squeeze, so that when you are in 1080i mode, it does not think you are playing back a DVD.

I also use 720x480 when viewing (thru Sage) as that is the native resolution I am encoding at. I feel I get the best pq this way. As far as the occasional window being too large for that resolution, I have the S-Video out of my ati 9600 going to another input on the TV. I just change my resolution to 800x600 and switch to that input (it does not display on the RGBHV).

[FJC]

I really don't mind 720x480 for SageTV use/playback, though I'm still trying to figure out how to eliminate the overscan. I have to run SageTV in a window that I've sized to be just barely larger than the viewable area, otherwise in full screen mode portions are cut off of each side. Any ideas on how to resolve that?

If I can get that resolved, then you've brought up some good ideas for me - perhaps I should just hook up another input to the card for when I want to configure or use the PC (for example, to web surf from the living room). Then in effect run in dual-monitor mode, with the 720x480 display as an extension of the other desktop. Unfortunately, this particular video card doesn't have an s-video output, it only has a composite RCA jack output, and that output was pretty darned ugly on this tv (very fuzzy, text nearly unreadable at 800x600). Granted, that was with a very cheesy RCA cable that was actually thinner than the cord on my mouse!

I've got plenty of spare composite and s-video inputs on the TV. Perhaps I can output something like 1024x768 to the tv via that composite, or switch to a card with an s-video if that'll get me better Windows output on this TV.

[mikbro]

Well, I don't know as I would use the composite (or s-video) output for web surfing - even s-video is a bit blurry. I just use it to get around the occasional window that is too big for 480 lines.

What brand/model of 9600SE do you have? Most that I have seen come with a little cable that attaches to the TV-out connector and gives you both a composite and s-video output.

As far as eliminating the overscan... check out that link I mentioned earlier, there are custom settings for 720x480, if you use those you should get nearly 0 overscan. The default 720x480 led to overscan (as it sounds like you have), but the settings from the link took care of them.

[FJC]

I'm using an ATI-brand 9600SE. It has three outputs on the rear - DVI, VGA, and that RCA composite. No s-video. I'm not married to the card, though, if there's something better for my purposes I can find another use for this card.

As for the overscan - I thought that Powerstrip was only of use if I could use the RGBHV input - I must not have understood that. I'll take another look.

Thanks again for all the help, it's greatly appreciated. Hopefully I'll be able to return the favor to others here after I become an expert on all this.

[mikbro]

Re: powerstrip, I *think* it will still work... I used it with a ATI 9700 AIW card that had the component dongle.

[stanger89]

When I set the resolution to 1776x1000, it showed up on my tv as letterboxed.

If that's the case then I wouldn't worry about a transcoder. A transcoder will allow you a wider range of resolutions but they'll still have to be resolutions the TV thinks are HD and will still have to squeeze.

Powerstrip is supposed to work with the dongle but it will only work with variations on the ATI resolutions (480i/p, 540p, 720p, 1000i, 1080p).

That does give me an idea though, have you tried setting the resolution to something like 1024x768. I think that should put you in virtual desktop (scrolling desktop) where you'll have a large desktop scrolling in a smaller screen. It would be horrible for Sage but might work alright for getting to those lost buttons you mentioned.