Rookie question - display problems

[Jukin]

I'm really new at the HTPC thing. I have a computer with the Core 2 quad processor running at 2.4 Ghz., 4 gig of RAM and a Hauppauge 1600 tuner card. I have two monitors, 1 is a 20" CRT and the other is a 22" wide screen digital flat panel display. I installed the video card and updated the drivers from the Hauppauge website. WinTV runs great but the features suck. I installed the trial version of SageTV and went through the install wizard and set the video corners, but for some reason the display was cut off even at this point in the install. I managed to adjust the screen to allow me to view an entire window but the image is only about 14 inches across instead of filling the 22 inch wide screen. I've changed between 4:3 and 16:9 settings, switched the "fill screen and "window" options and then tried to adjust the display on the 128MB NVIDIA GeForce 8300GS graphics card, but nothing I do eliminates the black bands on all sides of the video. I tried to move the window to the smaller monitor but it didn't make any difference - the problem occurs on BOTH monitors. At this point I've tried everything I can think of. Anyone here have a similar problem?

I'm sure this just something stupid I've overlooked, but I haven't been able to figure it out. Any help you guys can offer would be greatly appreciated!!

[carlgar]

Since you have 4 Ratio modes, you need to select which one you want to use for the show. Once that is select, use the Aspect Ratio Setting to adjust it to what you need. If you have black on all four sides you probably need about 133% horiz. stretch and 120% vert. Stretch. Each of the 4 Ratio mode will use its own setting.

[Jukin]

Thanks for the help Carl, it resolved the black bands but in the process I lost the sound completely and the video now stutters. I've tried changing things around but nothing seems to help. Any ideas?

[carlgar]

I ould treat them as two different issues.

studdering - does it occur if you use a different program like VLC or WMP to view the program? What OS are you using?

Sound - Is the loss just in Sage or on the complete system? I have seen a complete loss of sound on my system and I have a lot of trouble getting it back. I end up disconnecting the speakers and rebooting until Vista shows that there are no sound output devices. I can then reconnect the speakers and everything is fine. The last time I loss sound, I was testing suspend mode.

[Jukin]

OK let's start with the basics. My computer is a Dell Inspiron 530 with Intel Core 2 Quad Core processor running at 2.40Ghz with 8MB cache. I have 4GB SDRAM at 800MHz and a 128MB NVIDIA GeForce 8300GS graphics card. There are two monitors, my old 20 inch CRT and a new 22 in Digital Flat Panel display. I'm running Windows XP Pro.

The sound and graphics work fine when I run the WinTV program that came with the Hauppauge 1600 tuner card. (Although the video quality sucks when I enlarge the screen and select the analog cable input. If I reduce the screen size it looks good but no matter what display resolution I select, as soon as I enlarge the screen it reverts to the grainy picture quality. My TV is still connected to the cable via a spliter and that picture looks great! A 20 year old TV is getting a better picture than the month old PC!! Go figure!!)

Anyway back to the main problem, stuttering and no sound. It's only when I run SageTV. WinTV works great. Any ideas?

[Opus4]

Stuttering: You may be viewing the live non-recorded feed when using WinTV. SageTV always records to a file & then plays that -- is the recording drive formatted using 64K clusters?

Sound: Does a recorded file have sounds when played in another program?

Not sure about the image sizing...

- Andy