UI on HD200 TV no longer fills screen since firmware update

[dmmastro]

Newbie here. Since I did the latest firmware update of the HD200 I can't get my SD TV screen to fill with video. Even the user interface is squashed with dark bands on top and bottom.

When I received the HD200 about a month ago, I had the same problem until I did firmware update.(I think that was the 012 update) The update immediately made the UI fill the entire screen. For 4:3 digital programming I could then use the "fill" option to fill my 4:3 screen. (of course HD programs still had black bands on top and bottom ) I now have the most recent firmare update and immediately I am stuck with a smaller screen again. I have tried all the menu options to no avail. Aspect ratios and zoom A or B only fill the centre part of the tv (still leave dark band on top and bottom) I use component video cables, set at 480i with analog audio.
Please Help.

[JParedis]

Have you tried to hit the remote second button from the left, lowest row. Not sure how it's called again, don't have it here with me, but believe it's called 'video out'.

When I connect to the SageTV HTPC, I got the same black bands, but hitting that button does the trick for me.

Jan

[dmmastro]

Thanks Jan,

Unfortunately that does not work for me. That video out button scrolls between outputs of 480i,480p,720i,720p,1080i,1080p. My TV only plays 480i. Does anyone know if there is a setting in the hd200 properties file on the server that might be changed to fill the screen??

[dmmastro]

Okay, so I THINK my problem may have something to do with my sony TV and their enhanced vertical compression mode. The problem is I can't shut the setting off (it stays on auto)

I'm guessing, something changed with the video output of the HD200 with the latest firmware update, to make my TV behave differently. Anyone know what that could be?
Thanks,
Dino

[JParedis]

I only got my HD200 recently, and am still experimenting with it (got it currently in a good setting for movies, but SageTV UI is hard to read - fuzzy).

You probably did this, but just to be sure. In the settings of the HD200 there you set the screen (4:3; 16:9; ...) and output (480i,480p,720i, ...) and set the overscan correctly. I noticed that this is for stand-alone, you must also set the correct settings when running from an SageTV server. Not sure why/how this is different, still need to do some more 'playing around' with it.

I'm using a Phillips 16:9 SD TV, hooked to the HD200 with the component 3 plugs. The TV set also allows for switching its mode (4:3; 16:9; broad; automatic; ...). This allows one to force for instance a 4:3 image to 16:9 (loosing part of the image). I noticed that when I put it on auto, it does present the HD200 with the black top/bottom band. Switching it to 16:9 does than nicely fill the screen. Again still a riddle to me, too many settings available (HD200, SageTV, TV) getting me confused. I have to give it some decent organized testing. And of course, when I start a recorded program, it starts mostly with the black bands all around, and I have to hit the video out to have it fill the screen (or have if the case a top/bottom black border only).

Jan

[Taddeusz]

This sounds exactly like the problem I have with the latest beta firmware on my HD100. The last production firmware works fine. Basically after updating to the latest beta firmware it appears as if the video goes to 4:3 and then I need to use the zoom mode on my TV to make it look correct, which in turn cuts off the outer edges of the video. My cable box doesn't do this. One of the local broadcast channels has a distinct yellow line on the left side of the screen which is seen on both my cable box and HD100 with the production firmware.

I suggest putting in a support request to SageTV for this problem.

[dmmastro]

Well I just loaded the newest beta firmware for the HD200 and it fixed my problems with the aspect ratio. Thanks, SageTV. Hopefully, it doesn't go back on the next update.

Hey Jan, if you still need to hit the video out button then perhaps you can unselect some of the video out options in the stand alone mode that do not apply to your tv (eg 480i) This way you will always be in the correct video mode.

[JParedis]

Hadn't thought about that, will give it a try - thanks.

[Taddeusz]

I've emailed SageTV support with my findings but I believe may have discovered the reason behind this.

Last night I was messing with my DVD player. It is an upscaling DVD player that I have hooked to my TV via HDMI and displaying at 720p. I didn't really realize it till last night but it was showing the same symptoms as my HD100 when I moved to the beta firmware. Where "normal" zoom mode on my TV would make the image fit to 4:3. I was messing around in the settings and noticed it had an HDMI mode option. The choices are YPbCr and RGB. It was set to YPbCr. Just for giggles I changed the option to RGB to see if there was a quality difference. I was messing around for a while after than and didn't notice a quality difference but I did notice that the zoom mode on the TV didn't function the same way. It actually functioned the way my HD100 did when it had the latest production firmware.

So, my guess is that somewhere between the last production firmware and the latest beta the HDMI output mode got changed from RGB to YPbCr. I don't know why my TV would change the zoom mode for each type of input but it does.

I emailed my findings to support this morning. I hope to hear back soon as the latest firmware for the HD100 brings some positive changes.

[Taddeusz]

Ok, for those that are interested I got an answer back from support. I'm sure this probably also relates to the HD200. What I was told is that they changed the HDMI code so that if the TV reports it can do YUV it will switch the output to YUV rather than RGB since it should give higher quality output.

My TV changes it's display method depending on which type of input it gets. It applies overscan for YUV signals and no overscan for RGB signals. In YUV "Normal" zoom mode on my TV is considered 4:3 so it resizes the 16:9 signal it receives to match that.

This all makes sense to me now. In light of what I've told them maybe they will put an option in future firmwares to select whether to output YUV or RGB.

Just know that it's not the extender doing to rescaling but how the TV choses to deal with YUV and RGB signals.

[rlrl]

this sounds like the problem i'm having. i've got a sony 36xbr250 and everything is scrunched but on another 4x3 480i tv the output is just fine.

[valnar]

Originally Posted by Taddeusz

Ok, for those that are interested I got an answer back from support. I'm sure this probably also relates to the HD200. What I was told is that they changed the HDMI code so that if the TV reports it can do YUV it will switch the output to YUV rather than RGB since it should give higher quality output.

YUV is better than RGB? I thought kRGB219 is pretty much the best we have, while YUV is an older standard and not needed because HDTV doesn't deal in black and white. Not to mention its a compressed interpretation of RGB in the first place, isn't it? I can see why they'd use YUV for analog & NTSC via composite/svideo, but HDMI?

[Taddeusz]

Originally Posted by valnar

YUV is better than RGB? I thought kRGB219 is pretty much the best we have, while YUV is an older standard and not needed because HDTV doesn't deal in black and white. Not to mention its a compressed interpretation of RGB in the first place, isn't it? I can see why they'd use YUV for analog & NTSC via composite/svideo, but HDMI?

All video, whether it be SD or HD, is stored as YUV and not RGB. Of course, SD and HD are encoded with two different standards of YUV and have two similar but different colorspaces. BT.601 for SD and BT.709 for HD.

Allowing HDMI to transport YUV means that the conversion from YUV to RGB for display is done in the TV rather than by the extender. The TV should be able to better convert the video since it knows the characteristics of it's own display. This compared to a generic YUV to RGB conversion.

In the end this should yield a better picture

Edit: Researching it, I can't see how kRGB219 could be better than straight YUV since it is a specification to map YUV to RGB space.

[valnar]

Originally Posted by Taddeusz

All video, whether it be SD or HD, is stored as YUV and not RGB.

This is the part I didn't know. So that makes sense now. Thanks.

[cat6man]

my video processor is also indicating that the video is being passed at 4:4:4
which is the highest resolution chroma sampling (good news)

http://www.mediacollege.com/video/compression/444.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chroma_subsampling

[JParedis]

Originally Posted by dmmastro

Well I just loaded the newest beta firmware for the HD200 and it fixed my problems with the aspect ratio. Thanks, SageTV. Hopefully, it doesn't go back on the next update.

Hey Jan, if you still need to hit the video out button then perhaps you can unselect some of the video out options in the stand alone mode that do not apply to your tv (eg 480i) This way you will always be in the correct video mode.

Don't know how the button is called, but it's not the video out button I believe. It has 3 modes: Source, Fill and ? (forgot how the 3e one is called).
Source= gives the image with a black frame around it (top, bottom, both sides) => the problem, as this image should be displayed full screen.
Fill= stretches the image horizontally, leaves the top/bottom black frame. Changing my TV settings, I can 'correct' that (but must do that each time I start playing a movie) => this is my work-around.
?= stretches the image vertially, cuts of parts of the image left/righ, and leaves the left/righ black frame => useless in my case.

I would expect if the TV gets an (I believe) 16:9 image it would fill the complete screen, not display it with a black frame all around it.
I'll be trying any beta this evening to see if that solves the issue.

Not a killer, just a drag having each time to play with Sage and TV settings to get the right combination (and having to explain that to a babysit or family, forget it ...).

Jan

[rlrl]

loaded up the latest beta firmware & things work now