STV Status Bar way out of alignment on TV

[FreeBSD4me]

Does anyone know how to correctly align the status bars/ displays? What I mean is, when I push mute, or fast forward, a display header appears indicating details about the current program. At the bottom of the screen, a time shift bar displays with the time index. The problem is, both of these are out of whack. I can see only half of the top header, and the time shift bar is half cut off. This is in 800X600 or 1024X768 mode. It appears fine on my computer monitor, but not the TV.

Thing is, everything on my TV is perfectly lined up, so everything is fine there. I did try the Aspect Ratio settings, but that moves the picture alignment –it does not affect the status bars. I’ve looked high and low, but cannot find the setting that controls this. Any help would be great

Thanks,

Dave

[Whiskeyjack]

Go to Setup -- Detail Setup -- Multimedia -- Overscan settings. That will allow you to change the top left and bottom right corners for the interface.

[FreeBSD4me]

Yeah, I was playing around with that, but noticed it moved the STV 'menu' interface when you push those arrows. Are you saying it controls the on-screen display position as well? If I aligned this to the TV, then it looks like my menu interface would be pushed up too high, so I’d have the TV display working correctly, but the menu would be off. Am I missing something here, or is this correct?

Thanks Whiskeyjack,

Dave

[stanger89]

From what I've seen it looks like the SageTV OSD fills a slightly larger area than the menu. I just tried it on my client and yes, the overscan settings do affect the OSD as well as the menu.

-edit

I've been thinking it would be kind of nice if for the overscan settings Sage displayed some sort of test pattern, like the overscan patterns from DVE so we could see exactly where the absolute edge of the UI/OSD is drawn, since the menues don't seem to go all the way to the edge.

[FreeBSD4me]

Yep, I tried it out and it looks like you have to sacrifice one for the other ): If I move my main menu screen up to the point of the top of it disappearing, (can’t see how much drive space, etc) I have, then I can then line up the time shift status bar, which is sort of a bummer. Looks like the only way it works on the TV is to run in 640X480, which is fine, however the desktop is a mess. Maybe there’s a setting in the properties file for this?

Thanks,

Dave

[salsbst]

Huh? Why not just zoom out?

[FreeBSD4me]

What, you mean on the video card? Problem is, I’ve had a hell of a time setting up the vertical stretch on the TV. Something with the GeForce 5200 is a little out of sync with how display modes generally appear --mostly on TV-Out, so it's a bit of a pain getting it to harmonize with everything else.

Anyhow... Everything is lined up perfectly now, but I fear if I start zooming anything in or out, it’ll fall out of whack again. I reconfigured everything back to 640X480, and the time shift bar, as well as top info header is now visible again. Yeah, it sucks on the computer monitor, but at least I can see everything on the TV.

Thanks salsbst,

Dave

[salsbst]

No, I meant the zoom settings in SageTV. I'm just a little confused about what you were trying to but couldn't achieve at your other resolutions.

[stanger89]

You realize there are two parts to the overscan settings correct? The first step sets the upper left corner, the second sets the lower right corner, between the two, you should be able to get the whole OSD/UI on screen without being cut off.

[FreeBSD4me]

Well, when I run the monitor in 1024X768, and go to full screen in STV, (main menu mode), it perfectly covers the full screen on the PC monitor. When I look at it on the TV, it covers the whole screen as well. So far so good. Now, when you bring up the time shift bar/ header bar on the TV, the header is pushed too far up, and the time shift bar is half cut off.

Now, let’s go back to the main STV menu on the PC monitor. At this point, if I adjust the overscan settings at all, the whole menu interface moves up or down. Even going a little bit up cuts off the top of the menu. However, at the same time, this also adjusts the time shift/ header bar on the TV-Out. Same thing if running in 800X600. There’s no room for variance on the computer monitor when running at these resolutions.

So… If I go to 640X480, yes, the main menu (on the PC monitor) now only fills the 75% of the screen, but the time shift/ header bar is now visible on the TV-Out. This by no means affects picture quality –it’s just that I like running in 1024X768 on the PC monitor. Zoom control on STV? I’m not sure where that is. Anyway, it’s not a big deal, as I can live massive size icons on the PC monitor if I have to. It’s dedicated to STV, so I’m not using it for anything else.

Dave

[salsbst]

Gotcha. I think the real issue here is (was?) your video card. My 5200 lets me run different dispalys at different resolutions simultaneously. Perhaps yours does, too. That would give you the best of both worlds.

Running the TV-OUT at anything other than 640x480i or 720x480i is probably resulting in an extra scaling step, and certainly isn't going to help in any way.

[FreeBSD4me]

Don’t get me wrong, I really like my 5200, but just get a little confused when trying figure out the clone mode, dual display mode, then it has analog/TV, then TV/Analog, horizontal mode, etc, etc, etc. The largest problem was getting it to work correctly in dual display mode, in that yes, you can run two different displays, but you can’t (I think), run a different display on TV-Out, and a different one on your monitor, then view them simultaneously. So, I currently have it running in clone mode @ 640X480. I know… I’m totally confusing this somehow, but that’s where it’s set right now.

Dave

[salsbst]

AFAIK I have my 5200 running 1024x768 on the monitor and 640x480i on the TV out, but maybe I'm just imagining that. I'll take a look tonight.

[FreeBSD4me]

If there's a way to do that, please post your settings and I'll try it here

Many thanks,

Dave

[ToxMox]

Are you guys running VMR9 or Overlay. I'd have this problem with overlay but not with VMR9

[Cayars]

It only affects Overlay from what I see. I'm working on a solution for this in my STV. The problem is actually worse then described here because the OSD changes sizes depending on show being viewed in "Fill", "Source", "4x3" or "16x9" aspect ratio modes.

What I'm effectively doing is creating a 3rd set of controls that allow you to set the "underscan" amount for the OSD elements used in each of these modes.

What this will allow you to do is adjust the Aspect Ratio setting already in SageTV so your picture just hangs off the edges of the monitor (no black bars). You would then use the normal Overscan setting to align your menus to your new aspect ratio.

Typically, at this point, when watching movies the OSD goes off the screen. This is where my new "underscan" setting will allow you to resize the OSD panel down in size. Right now I have one "master" setting for this but I've got the feeling I'll need to add one setting for each of the aspect ratios (Fill, Source, 4x3, 16x9).

This should be in my Cayars15.stv when it's released.