Nvidia TV output

[GlennPT]

I am hoping someone can steer me in the right direction. I am getting my first PVR setup. I have a Hauppauge PVR-350 and using SAGE software. I didn’t realize until I bought the 350 that I couldn’t overlay the menu’s from SAGE on the video output. So after reading a lot of postings on this board, I bought a new graphics card with a NVIDIA FX 5200 chip. I have installed the card and updated the drivers, but I am having a problem getting this to work. I can get the video out to work and I can get the VGA output to work but I can’t get them to work at the same time in any mode but extended desktop. What I really want to do is get them working in what NVIDIA calls “clone” mode; this is where both outputs are the same view. I can get clone mode to work but when I start SAGE and go to live TV, I get a “failure to connecting video stream to the overlay mixer 0X80040217” and a blank picture. The question is can I get both displays to work at the same time or do I have to turn of the video display and use only the TV out. I am also having a problem getting the TV output to fill the TV screen. I have two black bands on the bottom and top of the screen. I found the video drive settings to increase the size of the TV output, but this setting just enlarges the whole screen and ends up distorting the H& V sizing. If anyone can shed some light on my problem I would really appreciate the help.

Glenn T

[stanger89]

You probably can't get overlay to work on both at the same time but VMR should work. Go to Detailed Setup -> Video and set Rendering Filter to "Default (Uses VMR on XP)"

Not sure about the size thing, I haven't used an nVidia card in a while.

[GlennPT]

Stranger89,
The overlay thing worked great. I have fooled with custom video resolution and gotten the bands smaller. Thanks

[AirJunky]

Hey Glenn,
I'm curious what the quality of the nVidia card is compared to the PVR-350. I tried a FX-5200 a few weeks ago & the display on the TV was crap compared to the Xcard I have now. Since the OSD is supported on the 350 in Sage 2.0 I was thinking I'd run with that for my next machine.

[sshapiro63]

I use an FX 5200 based card Svideo output and it looks as good as an Xcard on my TV (Sharp 36" SDTV). I had to adjust some settings to get the output correct but that only took about 15 minutes.

[GlennPT]

I don't know it I would call the output crap, but it is not as good as the 350 output. But as you said you can't get the OSD to work on the 350 output so I have no choice. I still haven't got the N Vidia video out to completely fill the screen, but the picture quality is good. I haven't used the Xcard so I can't make a comparision, but I will say that the card is worth the $79.00 I paid.