Overlay Resizing

[CanadianEh]

Hi all,

In both SageTV 2.0.15 and now 2.0.16, if I use Overlay with every codec I've tried, video now seems smoother than VMR9. However, when it refreshes the screen (changing to another tuner, changing to the guide, etc) sometimes it will re-size the entire screen down to about 2/3 of the TV (the picture will be centered still, but way too small). Has anyone else seen this?

I'm using an Albatron GeForce 4 MX440 with the latest nvidia drivers along with the latest PVR-250 drivers under Windows XP SP1..

[falchulk]

Yes, I have seen this happen. It was not just the overlay but everything that resized. YOu have to use overscan correction to get it back to normal. I mainly seen it with VMR in previous betas. I have an onboard Geforce4 as well. It has not happened to me in the last 2 betas though. EVen beofe sage 2.0, I had this happen with zoom player if I used resoloutions higher then my desktop was set to. What res are you running?

[CanadianEh]

I'm currently using the 640x480 resolution. I *think* it was occuring at 720x480 and 800x600, but now that I think about it, I'm not so sure. I dropped to 640x480 because it seems to provide for a smoother picture in either VMR9 or Overlay.

[falchulk]

That could be the reason. The default res for the standard recording profiles is 720x480. Try using 800x 600 and see if it still occurs.

[jbuszkie]

I see this too.. Even with 1.14 and sometime with my DVD player software (powerDVD) I keep thinking it's a driver issue. I've also got embeddded TV out (Nvidia) and I've got the latest driver (there was one released in april) The past couple of driver iterations kept changing the behavior. The previous one would sometimes shrink and sometimes expand. Now with the april driver, it always expands. I have to go into the TVoutput setting from the nvidia control panel to shrink it back to size. Do you agree that it's an issue with the driver?

Thanks,

Jim

[falchulk]

I would absolutely agree since it did not do it for me with the original driver that shipped with my MB. But I have narrowed down a way to prevent it. If my video res is lower then my screen res, it does not happen. If I use a lower screen res then it happens 99% of the time.

[jbuszkie]

How do you set the video res lower than the screen res?

I have my screen res set to 800x600. The video res can't be higher than that? Or should I bump the screen res to 1024x768?
The text is then pretty much unreadable on the tv and I have to VNC to do anything non TV...
Oh.. The original driver would cause lines on the screen when the disk was active. I think I also might bite the bullet and buy the cheapest agp card that has tv out and get away from N-vidia.. Or maybe I should write to nvida and tell them to fix this!

[CanadianEh]

Well...

It looks like the only way I can use Overlay is using the NVDVD codec (all others including Happauge and Sonic seem to "strobe".. any thoughts?) and not have it re-size my screen when changing video sources or refreshing the screen, is to use the 1024x768 resolution on my GeForce4 MX440. This makes any program other than SageTV totally useless though There's got to be a better way :P

[mlbdude]

I stopped using my fx5200 and went to an ATI 9000 because of this issue. I also tried resolutions up to 800x600.

[CanadianEh]

Really? Yup. I posted my response too quickly.. lol I sat down and started watching it in 1024x768 in Overlay, changed the channel one more time, and wham! Right back to the small picture in the middle of the screen. Annoying. I guess I'll leave it in VMR9 for the time being.

MLBDUDE: How does your ATI 9000 do with VMR9 and Overlay? Which version do you have? (all-in-wonder, pro, or regular?) Are there any frame drops/skips? In VMR9, it looks like my MX440 drops one every second or two if you look *really* closely.

[kny3twalker]

that could be just an issue with this version, cause I am experiencing similiar drops, stuttering, skips what ever you want to call it when using an mode on SageTV with 3d acceleration
look at post RC1 experiences

[jbuszkie]

I think I'm just going to have to live with it until Nvidia fixes the driver. Right now I have Sage running in Windowed mode (not full screen) and basically maximized the window to the edges of the screen. I have a border right now, but I'll make the picture just big enough with overscan to get rid of that. It's not the best solution, but it seems to hold the size so far compared to full screen mode..

Jim

[falchulk]

Hmm, thats very strange. As long as I run at 800x600, I dont have the issue. I never had it with the intervideo codec, no matter the res. The nvdvd codec looks much better but had this problem with sage and zoom when using 720x480 and 640x480. I have the same geforce4 car and the newest drivers without he problem you report.