HTPC screen resolution changes when TV turns off

[jryan15]

I'm having a little bit of trouble with my htpc screen resolution. I'm running windows 7 and use hdmi at 1920x1080 to connect to my tv. Everything works great initially, but when I turn off the tv for a while, the htpc senses it and down sizes the resolution.

When I turn the tv back on, the screen resolution recovers, but the sagetv window is cropped down to the other resolution. It recovers if I put it to sleep and restore it, but it would be nice to have an automated solution.

Any help/advice would be appreciated. BTW I'm also running girder if it may help with a solution.

Thanks.

[sportera]

Originally Posted by jryan15

I'm having a little bit of trouble with my htpc screen resolution. I'm running windows 7 and use hdmi at 1920x1080 to connect to my tv. Everything works great initially, but when I turn off the tv for a while, the htpc senses it and down sizes the resolution.

When I turn the tv back on, the screen resolution recovers, but the sagetv window is cropped down to the other resolution. It recovers if I put it to sleep and restore it, but it would be nice to have an automated solution.

Same problem here and I've been making rounds to all forums looking for answers for a couple of months now. What vidio card are you using? I've been a die hard nvidia user for years and have a 9500GT in my HTPC client. I've read good reports on ATI 4000 and 5000 series cards but also have read about many EDID issues with them as well. I'm very tempted to try an ATI HD 5540 that cost 1/2 of what I paid for 9500GT.

In addition to this problem, I lose both audio and video when turning on TV and AVR after shutting down the night before. I have our PS3 cabled to HDMI5 (game device input) of my Denon 3310i AVR with my HTPC going to HDMI4 (DVR device input) from HPTC 9500GT video card. Denon AVR HDMI output is cabled to LG 60" plasma. My additional problem is when I power down plasma TV, PS3, and Denon 3310i for the night (HTPC stays on), and restore power the next day, I get no video to TV or sound through Denon AVR. I typically find if I turn on PS3, switch to PS3 and then back to TV (from DVR), I most of the time get video and sound restored. Many times I need to reboot the HTPC. Been looking for answers to this problem as well.

Only answer I've found for both that makes sense, (haven't tried it though), is to cable video directly from HTPC video HDMI output to one of the LCD/Plasma HDMI inputs and keep the sound going through AVR (optical or coaxial SPDIF). I don't want to go this way as I will lose the AVR setting menu that get overlayed to TV screen when adjusting Denon setting.

Haven't found much on this forum relating to these problems yet. Found most responses on other HTPC forums. Try googling for feedback on other forums. Here's hoping some of the heavy technicals on this forum have found some answers.

[Fuzzy]

monoprice has a DVIDoctor product that will record the TV's EDID and constantly keep it present to the video card, so it will not see it get disconnected. Beyond that, if you've already got Girder up and running, and are using it from a USB-UIRT for control of your client, you could probably have it do your sleep/wakeup sequence when it senses the remote's TV-On command on the USB-UIRT. It would probably be slept and woken before the TV even got fully up and running.

[jryan15]

Thanks, that's a great idea. Just tried it, but I don't know what send message command puts sage to sleep (and minimizes sage). I've tried the params 43 and 44 for power on and power off, but power off just turns on the screen saver. After using power on, the screen is still cropped.

I'm using sagemc, and when I select the "x" in the lop left of the screen and choose "sleep", it minimizes sage. When I recover from this, sage is restored to the correct size.

[Fuzzy]

Try just sending a minimize window command from girder, then either restore window, or the sage power on send message to bring it back.

[jryan15]

That worked great!

[jryan15]

I guess I spoke to soon... Looks like minimize is having inconsistent results. Does anyone know of a send message to send sagetv to the system tray?

edit: Well I tried the sendmessage param 19 to put sage to sleep, but it just goes to screen saver... I don't understand why when I click sleep in sagemc it drops sage to the system tray, but when I use the sendmessage command the screen saver comes on. What I do know is that using the sleep command from sagemc works everytime.

edit 2: I tried again using the power off and power on sendmessage params (43,44). To fix the screen saver issue, I opened sageClient.properties (since I run service mode) and set ui/screen_saver_on_sleep=false. This change now has sage drop to the system tray like I wanted. There were still inconsistent results, so I added a 500ms delay before I started the chain. This seems to be working ok. My only gripe is that with the delay occasionally I can see the events happen on the TV. I guess it's a small price to pay.

[Fuzzy]

small price.. it saves ya $50 from having to buy the DVI Doctor thing...

[jryan15]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

small price.. it saves ya $50 from having to buy the DVI Doctor thing...

no kidding!

Your comment made me think of an alternate solution... Before trying to fix this issue automatically, I had the restore process down to 3 button clicks on the remote. From the sagemc menu, left to highlight the close button, ok to select the close button, ok to select sleep (which is the default), and menu (which I setup girder to auto launch sage if it's not up already). I guess I could have used sendmessage(s) for left, ok, ok, menu...

[MattHelm]

BTW, this a a change M$ made in Windows 7, and one of the tech boards I was reading, the M$ rep said they would at some point change this back to the way XP/Vista did it, or at least put an option in.

The site I was on, the people were having the same problem with KVM switches, and didn't want to buy new KVM switches that supported it at $400 or so each.

[wayner]

Here is another idea to try:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...1#post17448181