TV out and no Black Bars!

[Atlantis]

I’m wondering how people watch media files on their TV with TV out of their graphic card? I have a Geforce2 MX video card. My problem is that with these cards (any video card with a TV out) you are limited to their resolution. For example 640 x 480 or 800 x 600 for NTSC and when played on TV, they don’t fill the TV. There are black bars on the top, button , left, right.

I remember there was a program that outputted the video in a resolution that it could fill the TV. I should say that zoomplayer and software like that don’t work. It's not a player function actually. You can zoom in and out with those but in the available video frame on TV. Meaning that I can zoom in but the black bars are still there.

[Atlantis]

I'm sorry, could some one please move this to PC Hardware, maybe that’s a more appropriate section.

[hulkenstrong]

tv-tool is a exelent program for tv-out on nvidia. The latest detonator do support a overscan option also. And it has correct tv-out resolution to www.guru3d.com 42.70 if interested. As I own a GF4 I cant guarante any of the abowe will work, but atleast its wort a try.

[Atlantis]

Hi! I tried and installed detonator 42.70. It’s a great driver. It gives you many options. I was able to change the resolution of my TV output to 720 x 480 in NTSC and it fills the TV fine but there is another problem. Whenever I try a player with overlay it automatically switches my TV to 640 x 480. I remember that in the previous versions you could uncheck the option that changes the resolution in the fullscreen overlay display. Where is it now? What should I do? Disabling the fullscreen overlay is not what I want.
http://perso.club-internet.fr/willow/temp_nvidia.jpg

[hulkenstrong]

well actually it has newer done that for me so I cant answer and hope some1 else can find it. I will try tomorow to se if it changes resolution for me when I try a player with overlay.

[Atlantis]

How do you watch your medias on your TV?

[hulkenstrong]

I use TV-tool 6.5 and pal resolution or I just switch display type to tv then remove the blackbars trough the zom and maxime the player and lean back enjoying the movie.

[Atlantis]

or I just switch display type to tv then remove the blackbars trough the zom
Could you please elaborate more? Are you doing this second method in TV-Tool also? Since you used “or” I’m not sure if this second way is also in tv-tool or not; because simple zooming doesn’t solve the black bars. Also could you please give me a link to this tv-tool? I would like to try it. Thanks!

[hulkenstrong]

Sorry.

1. Most of the time I use TV-tool to switch from monitor to TV. I configure tv-tool and set it to fullscreen mode to get rid of black bars.

2. Sometimes I use the built in mode. Go in properties and switch to tv and use the screen size option to zoom and get rid of the black bars.

(To the right of the zoom control in your meny)

[hulkenstrong]

Sorry for the long reply. Finnaly had some time desided to check and added tv as second monitor. First bug i found was I could only use 640x480, 1024x768 when selecting the 720x576 or 800x600 my tv when pink. But when using 1024x768 and maximizing a movie I couldnt noticing it changing resolution so that should work, maybe you have set your player to rezise when maximizing? And I also foundout that in the meny where you change the flickerfilter you have the correct setting to remove blackbars (overscan). Hope you understan what I have typed and that it doeas help. But gotta say I hope tv-tool adds support for dual monitors soon as thats so much better. The nview is driving me crazy moving windows every where doesnt let me set non primary monitor to fullscreen device and so on.

[Atlantis]

The setting in the flickerfilter window is not for "overscan" but for "positioning". It only changes the place of the picture. It doesn’t make bigger the picture for black bars removal. At Least for me. Maybe your card has something special that I don't have.

Also I think you misunderstood me. When playing a movie I talked about the full screen overlay option not normal playback. Yes if I play something and maximize my player, the resolution doesn’t change.

Maybe your card doesn’t have this option. Look closer at this picture: http://perso.club-internet.fr/willow/temp_nvidia.jpg

I set the Full Screen Device to secondary. When playing back a media, it automatically plays in fullscreen overlay just the overlay part on your TV.

[hulkenstrong]

Yes I have it I have a GF4 with conexant TV-out chipset that support alot of advanced feutures.

1. In the flickerfilter meny I have:

1. Slider for the flickerfilter.
2. A meny to change the position of tv-out.
3. A slider to activate overscan or not (0-1)

And I have the overlay option to but I just can seem to get anything usefull out of those controlls. The zoom controll there does only zoom in the video not remove the bars. And when I active any of the fullsreen modes there it just doesnt work as I like. So by switching tv to primary then set nviwew to move everything else to 1 monitor I can both get fullscreen (not rezied), no black borders and use the monitor for surfing and other works (as im doing right now).

http://w1.155.telia.com/~u15513920/p1.jpg
http://w1.155.telia.com/~u15513920/p2.jpg

[Atlantis]

Ah thanks! Your card has more features. I don’t have that Screen Size option. I guess it’s time that I get a better card maybe.

[hulkenstrong]

I recomend you to get a card that has a conexant as that is recomended by tv-tool as the best tv-out chipset and I can tell you it has great picture quality.

[cult]

or even better:get an ati

[Atlantis]

I finally got a new card today. What’s up with ATI recently? All the cards that I saw had ATI chipsets and maybe just one based on nVidia. I finally got Hercules 3D Prophet All-In-Wonder 7500. It’s based on ATI Radeon 7500 with 64MB DDR. I didn’t like ATI cards before but I thought that I should test a new one. Maybe they got better since they are used extensively by Hercules.

Anyway I’m very impressed. (I don’t play games) But for video capture and playback on TV it’s excellent, better than previous ATIs. You can of course fill the screen and more importantly it plays the video real smooth on TV. With my previous card, only fullscreen overlay played smooth on TV. With this card you don’t have overlay fullscreen but it plays it smoothly!

[downloada]

hi,

i think there should be an option for overlay fullscreen in the ati-driver, too. it's just called differently, ati named it "theater mode".

if you haven't already done so, get rage3dtweak, it enables a lot of features in the drivers and can also be used to switch between presets quickly...

http://www.rage3d.com/r3dtweak/

cu

[cult]

I second that

[mectron]

I had a lot of problems getting full screen in Dual screen mode with my ATI AIW 8500. No Matter what setting i use, i was alway getting black bars on top and bottom. Overscan mode work.. but loss to much of the picture (TV station logo where half chopped off the screen!)

I have a Sony Wega TV set. Since all newer TV's don't have setting for the screen geometry available to customer. i search the net and found the remote code for the "secret" menu that allow all the setting to be ajusteted (like a PC monitor). so now i am enjoying FULL screen TV (from my video card) with all the available picture area i can get.

The "Perfect" solution for full TBV out is in the TV it's self, not the Card. (a least for me)

[Atlantis]

Thanks a lot for the links. I tried rage3dtweak and it gives a lot of extra resolutions. I enabled 720 x 480 and was able to remove all the black bars. You can still reduce them with the official 800 x 600 resolution but I get a tiny small black bar on top and bottom but not with 720 x 480.

Also one question about PowerDVD. I have different DVD Player software including PowerDVD and when ever I play MPEG-2 files, the screen goes completely black for a very short time and then plays the file. It looks like it tries to change the resolution but nothing changes. If I play MPEG-1 files or AVIs in Power-DVD, I don’t get the black flashing screen. Since I try many MPEG-2 files, it gets really annoying after a while. Same result with WinDVD

So do you use any other DVD players than ATI DVD Player and do you get this problem playing mpeg-2 files?