Fill mode

[olyar15]

Using 1.2.8, setting the screen to "fill" mode won't stretch the video to fill the screen as I had hoped. It instead shows the 4:3 video and fills the rest of the screen with black bars. As I have a widescreen display, I would like the TV picture to fill the entire screen to prevent burn-in. Any way to do this.

BTW, tried both VMR and overlay, no difference. Running ATI 9000 with Catalyst 3.2, DirectX 8.1, PVR250.

[edmc]

Hmm... This is exactly what I do... What is your Desktop Resolution? Mine's set to 856x480p 60Hz 32-bit Color. I use PowerStrip to center the image so that the Overscan is evenly distributed across all four sides. And I set my Aspect Ratio in SageTV to "Fill". I believe the desired behavior also appears when I select "16x9". Have you tried the other settings?

I assure you this is a feature that I, for one, was very happy to see implemented. Were it not for this feature, I'd probably have gone a different route (e.g. employing DScaler to "stretch" the image).

[olyar15]

Well, I am running at 1280x768. Tried all the different modes, and I can't get it to fill the screen. When it is set to "16x9", it just adds bars on the bottom and top, along with the bars on the side. Maybe I will have to reinstall the software. Or even reformat and re-install everything.

[Xleon]

Are you using a monitor output as well as a TV?

If it's a dedicated box, then the best resolution is one that is just bigger than the actual TV input size.

Hence, mine is set to 800 x 600 as PAL active lines are 720 x 576.
Anything larger isn't going to make the picture any better (and becomes unreadable on a TV anyway from a distance).

[Narflex]

For changes to the video setup to take effect, you need to 'close' the current file being viewed. The way to do this is to put SageTV to sleep and then wake it up. This way it'll destroy and then rebuild the playback graph so changing something like VMR to Overlay will take effect.

It's probably that you've got default selected instead of Overlay is my guess. There may also be some settings in the control panel for your display adapter that disabled this. Look for things like stretch and zoom modes, it all depends on your graphics card.

[olyar15]

I noticd that I was using default for both audio and video decoders. When I set these to the WinDVD decoders, vdeo is now stretched properly.

[mangriotis]

edmc - Are you using Video Out from your graphics card? What type of card and tv do you have?

I am disappointed with the resolution I am getting using DVI out to my JVC AV48WP30... it should be sharper, especially DVD playback but I am not sure what I am doing wrong.

I tried video out as well, and get what looks like a sharper image, but a problem with color fill. Nothing I change within powerstrip seems to fix it... any pointers?

[edmc]

> edmc - Are you using Video Out from your graphics card? What type of card and tv do you have?

I'm using the VGA output from my OEM ATI 7500. I have a KD Transcoder connected to that VGA output. The KD is set to 480p (it has DIP settings for 480p, 720p, and 1080i as well as Positive & Negative Sync). The output of the KD (Component) is connected to the 480p (a.k.a. "EDTV") Progressive input on my 40" Samsung LCD RPTV. I should note that this 480p connection is optimized for the Progressive DVD Players out there (I used to have a Panasonic RP-56 set to Progressive driving this same input).

[mangriotis]

I found something out from a little experiementation...

I was using the nView software (nVidia GF4 Ti4200 card) to generate a cloned picture on both my primary display (monitor) through VGA port and secondary display (JVC RPTV) through DVI.

I had selected the 'display Secondary display fullscreen'. This was great for ease of use. I just started Sage and when an overlay would play on the screen it automatically adjusted to fit the RPTV screen. The input was such that I could use the TV stretch mode to fill the screen in the way I like (Full for 16:9 and Panoranma for 4:3), but it introduced a blurriness to the material...

If I go into Display, Advanced, nView, and switch the primary display to the RPTV (so the picture is exclusively on the TV), then change the resolution to 720x480 (HDTV derived) using Powerstrip, I get a crisp picture, for all material including text on the screen. It's a lot of work to switch back and forth, but I like the picture quality so much better. Anyone know how to setup a script or an application that can help ease this transition from monitor to TV and back again?

Side note: I am thinking of getting a dedicated computer to run Sage, so I can do what I want with my main pc. What are minimum requirements to ensure flawless recording and playback (i.e. which video card, processor, mobo)?

[mangriotis]

bump - with this new config, I really need to figure out how to change displays and resolutions quickly, please read above questions...

[Narflex]

Mango, check out some of my other posts about PCs. There's a Compaq one I spec out as well as a small Mini-ITX box also. They're more or less what I run on my network, the Compaq is my SageTV Server, and the Mini-ITX is my SageTVClient.

[JJarmoc]

Since this thread is on the subject of fill mode, how does SageTV's fill mode work? Is it a simple stretch, a zoom, or a combination of two? Can I use FFDShow with Sage to do my scaling?

[dkardatzke]

Originally posted by mangriotis
bump - with this new config, I really need to figure out how to change displays and resolutions quickly, please read above questions...

Matt,

I would also try posting this question to the AVS forum because others may be in the same boat as you there..

[Narflex]

JJarmoc, There's no FFDshow support in Sage that I know of.

For the fill mode, it depends upon your desktop resolution and the width/height zoom factors you have specified. You can customize it so it'll go whichever way you want by adjusting the zoom factors.

[JJarmoc]

Sounds like a nice, flexible option. Zoom mode is one of those things I get pretty picky about. Some modes show obvious distortion (short fat people, ovals instead of circles, etc.) Others are almost unnoticable. From the sound of it, the way you have it configured I can adjust it pretty much however I want...

[Narflex]

That was the plan.