URGENT---Help with FX5700 card to TV

[gplasky]

Did you ever try this?

From post a bit above:

Try this. Go to the advanced properties of the GeForce and go to the troubleshooting tab. Click on the box that says "My connected TV is not being detected". It should ask you to restart. Restart and then see if you get the TV specific details.

Gerry

[marcw]

I know I have tried this but will do so again.

All this and I have not even gotten test Sage TV yet. By the time I get done my 15 day trial will expire.

Marc

[stanger89]

Thing is, he isn't connecting a TV (at least as far as the card is concerned), to the card it's just a monitor.

[marcw]

What are all the settings you gave me. I am on the screen for setting up a new monitor..

[gplasky]

I know. But if he can enable the TV settings in the nVidia control panel he would be able to actually choose his HDTV resolution out of the nVidia settings.

Gerry

[stanger89]

Look here:
http://www.ramelectronics.net/html/powerstrip.html

Copy the whole thing I posted (Power... to vsync) and click the paste button (looks like two sheets of paper I think) on the Custom Resolutions page.

[marcw]

I could not spend much time on it last night.

As far as what you mention about copying and pasting, is this for me to have as a reference or is it to coipy the parameters and paste them into a params file?

Marc

[marcw]

Nix that, I think I got what you meant.

[marcw]

Ok have PS loaded and am playng around with the predefined resolutions.

as well as the one stanger69 gave me. 720x480 gives a nice big mostly clear deplay. the 1776 setting fills the screen but the icons are very small and there is flicker and most everythng is blurry.

I havenot made it through PS docs yet but if someone wants to tell me how to make it sharp all over that woudl be great. it appears that most of the problems are in the lower corners of the screen.

Marc

[GbrNole]

you need to use a progressive setting for sharp detail on the desktop. try 920x500 for very little overscan.

1776x1000 is great for video playback quality though.

[marcw]

Thx, so I guess what I shoudl do is set my favorite resolutions in the display pref box and select theone for the situation, games, desktop 320x500 and moviews/tv 1776 or 1920x1080.

The predefined settings are HDTV standard and derived. The derived work the best. Ar ethe derived usually interlaced or progressive?

Thx,
Marc

[stanger89]

You're results sound expected. It's nearly impossible to get a perfectly clear desktop at high resolutions (1080i etc). I'd advise you to take a look at the first post in this thread:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...hreadid=206854
It contains a lot of good info about using PS with RPTVs.

It sounds like 1080i is too small/fuzy, and 480p is too big, your best bet will probably be 960x540p:

PowerStrip timing parameters:
960x540p=960,98,48,142,540,7,1,15,42120,272

Generic timing details for 960x540:
HFP=98 HSW=48 HBP=142 kHz=34 VFP=7 VSW=1 VBP=15 Hz=60
+hsync +vsync

Unfortunately the only way to make it really sharp is probably to have an ISF tech come calibrate/focus/converge your set, RPTVs just aren't meant to be monitors.

On the bright side, it sounds like you have a couple resolutions working, fire up Sage and enjoy your setup. If you've got a DVD throw it in and watch it at 1776x1000i, I think you'll be impressed.

[marcw]

Gentlemen, thank you all, enough for tonight but it seems like I have enough settings to get me started. I am now at 920x500, the x540 won;t work but I guess I need to read and experiment. Thsi weekend it's time for Sage TV.

marc

[GbrNole]

way to go marc!

knew you would crack it

[marcw]

Is it possible to knock my tv out of wack and have the tv portion become "blurry" from all the chnages I am making to the resolution.

Thx,
Marc

[stanger89]

If you're talking about the blurry corners, it's probably just the way the TV is. My parent's Mits (RPTV) is blurry towards the corners, it's just a limitation of the technology I think. Even my direct view 36" is a little blurry at the corners.

Well let us know how it goes.

[GbrNole]

the resolutions you are throwing at it are those that the tv expects so no you really can't do any harm. now if you try and use an unsupported hdtv resolution such as 1280x720 (that may even be supported by your tv but i doubt it) or some generic pc resolution such as 1024x768 then that may cause you some issues.

1920x1080i, 1920x540p, 1776x1000i, 960x540p and 920x500p are all well within the capabilities and timing structure of your tv and will cause it no harm.

the real key is that when you use the 920x500 resolutiuon, for example, is that when adjusting the image location in powerstrip you should only use the green porch buttons on the left side of the screen and not the green resize buttons to the right. you want to keep your refresh rates as close as possible to 33.75 and 59.97 at that resolution.

a slight deviation either way can knock you convergence off a little (only on that input) and make the picture seem a tad more fuzzy. my desktop is crystal clear at 920x500 and 960x540 (more overscanned at 960x540 though) and flickers A LOT in interlaced modes but dang the video looks good at 1920x1080i

the other nice thing that you can do with powerstrip is setup resolution hot keys and also resolution defaults so you can make it when sage starts the resolution will auto convert to 960x540 and say a dvd program will open at 1920x1080i and internet explorer will open at 920x500p.

i have 920x500 mapped to ctrl+alt+D
i have 960x540 mapped to ctrl+alt+5
i have 1280x720 mapped to ctrl+alt+7
i have 1920x1080i mapped to ctrl+alt+I

i can very quickly and easily jump between my resolutions that way.

[marcw]

Gents:

Ok, PS did the trick for the resolutions. I am still a bit disappointed by the blurryness.I ti smore than just in the corners. It's like the letters are ghosting. I played around with manually changing some of the porch settings not really knowing whjat I was doing. it justs moves the blurryness around the screen.

How do the TIVO guys get it righ so easily?

I set up SageTV with a S-Video connection from my HD cable box to the S-Video input on the card and watched live TV. I guess I forgot to purchase an IR Blaster device to change the cable box stations. I may split the line and just go coax in for now and let Sage do the tuning. No HBO this way.

About sound? With Coax I assume no problem. With S-Video should I be taking the sound out of the cable box (RCA) and into the line in of the motherboard. My MOBO has line in and SPDIF connections.

Sound out? MOBO to TV? (I am working on a SS system purchase).

Viewing? Despite my blur issues I am trying to figure out what is the best resolution to watch shows in. I have not tried playing a DVD yet. When I did with WMP it gave me a protection issue for a store bought DVD. I have the current resolution set to 920x500, 960x540 creates too much blurr for my eyes. All in all the picture quality when watching live TV through the HTPC is a little worse then directly. I am guessing that a recorded DVD will look better if played on another TV.

When I set it to 1920x1080 I am way off the screen with overscan, will I notice this overscan when watching a DVD or recorded show? I like the idea of hot keys and if I read it correctly in the post above I can automate Sage to set the resolution by type of program played. I need to read up on Sage (next in the priority order)

I will say that this is truly an enthusiast project, since I have spent 3X what it would cost in time and $$ for an HD Tivo. But hey I am having fun.

[GbrNole]

at least you're having fun. too many people get frustrated and give up but when it's all purring it can't be beat.

the audio in from the cable box goes directly into the pvr250. you will have to buy a mini-din x rca splitter to connect the red/white audio leads to the card.

audio out comes from the mobo and preferably by spdif directly to an audio receiver or otherwise by analog output to the tv or audio receiver.

to get rid of the copy protection error you will have to use a macrovision defeat program such as dvdidle, dvdanywhere or somesuch.

the other way is to use dvdshrink (freeware at dvdshrink.org) and rip the movie to the harddrive and this will strip the movie of macrovision (and take out titles, subtitles, additional audio tracks, trailers etc. if you want to go that far) dvd shrink is my preferred method as i can now access movies from my HDD and play right away or alternatively burn to dvd and just drop in a disc to get the same easy playback with no menu hassle.

the overscan will not affect movie watching. it's only a pain in the butt if you want to do pc stuff, surf the web - check email etc. the 1776x1000 setting should be a lot less overscanned than the 1080 setting.

the only other recommendation i can make is to get a decent RGB cable now that you have it working (you may already have a good one right now?) and keep it as short as possible.

bluejeanscable.com make a good rgb cable but it's kinda pricey. i'm sure ram electronics probably have a pretty nice one too.

i guess finally just make double sure you are set to 32-bit color output for best desktop quality and check you powerstrip settings again for 33.75hz in the top box and 59.97hz in the lower box for frequency settings in your 920x500 resolution.

you next fun yask will be finding the right dvd player/codec to suit your needs

[stanger89]

How do the TIVO guys get it righ so easily?

Tivo's are 480i, use large fonts, and are designed to be seen on a TV, that's why they have it so easy. On the plus side, so is SageTV.

GbrNole handled the audio already.

DVDs, Do you have a SW DVD player installed? That may have something to do with the protection, also make sure you have the S-Video disabled on the card. You should not need to remove macrovision on an RGB device, that's only on TV connections (Composite/S-Video/Component YPbPr). To find out if it is a MV problem you can try setting the resolution to 720x480 or 640x480, there should be no MV issues there (You'll want to use 1000i or 1080i for video in the end though).

GbrNole brought up a good point about the cable. On my 19" 1280x1024 LCD the picture is pretty good with a standard 6' VGA cable, but if I use my el'cheapo extension I get bad blurring/ghosting. I'm not sure I'd go so far as ordering a cable, you might want to try and find a nice one locally so you can take it back if that's not the problem. I just looked, and for the price that bluejeanscable wants for a VGA cable (that's what you're using) I'd get one from Bettercables for the $10 more.

As for overscan, I wouldn't worry about it much for video/Sage, you can adjust Sage itself to compensate for overscan.

Hey, glad to hear you have it working and that you're having fun, I know if I didn't enjoy this I probably would have just got a ReplayTV.