NextPVR Forums

I can't ajust the refresh-rate lower than 60 Hz, but in PAL-land i think it would be very good if one could go as low as 50 Hz(TV set's nativ resolution (I recon, this is 720x586 @ 50 Hz interlaced) to prevent any unnecessary scaling).

Have anyone done that ?

you could try 75 or 100

i have mine at 50 but its nvidia card

Get powerstrip. It will over-ride what the radeon drivers think the refresh rate is.

The other thing to try is that the radeon drivers will default to 60Hz min unless the monitor driver properties allow 50Hz operation. This is to prevent you setting a mode that the screen cant display - as fixing windows can be tricky when the display is garbled.

In the radeon control panel there is a setting to allow other than 60Hz refresh.


Kev

I have a ATI 9250 with a similar problem...

I recently moved to Australia. When I connected my PVR to a cheap PAL 4x3 TV, I did get a picture using the "Generic TV" for my second monitor. Several programs that I still had stored on my hard drive, recorded in Canada - NTSC, play all right. I have yet to get a local tuner card to record local PAL shows...

4x3 video plays back all right except for a couple of minor things. There seems to be horizontal flicker. Kinda like horizontal scrolls flicker a bit. I attributed that to my card outputting to 60hz even though the TV should be in 50. The TV indicates for a brief moment when I start the system that it is being fed a PAL signal (the ATI control panel was changed to PAL B) but the display settings still show that it is set to 60 hz. I took the above advice and changed the setting to 75HX and the flicker seems to have gotten better... But then it is still NTSC video being played ON PAL with inherent frame rate conversion.

But I'm having a weird aspect ratio problem. It seems that the GB-PVR display rectangle doesn't stretch vertically all the way.

If this were in MVP world, I would think that GB-PVR or a on-the-fly transcoder isn't sending a PAL 720x576 image to the MVP, but it's not with an MVP, it's video out to TV composite in.

So I'm looking for ways to change the dimensions on my video out, and it seems that this isn't possible. I have looked at some of the threads here regarding customizing aspect ratios when using a HD LCD, but I can't find info to work with a CRT PAL 4x3...

Any ideas?

Quote:But I'm having a weird aspect ratio problem. It seems that the GB-PVR display rectangle doesn't stretch vertically all the way.

When you press F7 to cycle though the aspect ratios, do any of them fill the screen?

sub Wrote:When you press F7 to cycle though the aspect ratios, do any of them fill the screen?

Not Quite. When I have it on either Auto or 4x3
<AspectRatioMode name="Auto" ratio="0,0,0,0" />
<AspectRatioMode name="4:3" ratio="0,0,1,1" />

I still get about 10 lines at the top and ten 15 lines at the bottom. This is the same when GB-PVR is not running. I think it's the video Input ratio..

---

OK I just looked at several TV channels during daytime programming. 7, 9, and 10 all have the same aspect ratio showing the thin black bars at the top and bottom.

I'm using analog off air. I know that some programs in primetime give me ful screen, and some also give the black bars. I think it has to do with the display rectangle that's actually being broadcast.

I have also tried PowerStrip as suggested, and can force the "generic Television" profile to 800x600. Then I get video straight to the top of the screen, but I still have the same black bar at the bottom.

It may also be overscan/underscan issue.

I don't know if it's a GB-PVR or even generic video card issue.

It's probably how the TV takes the different input ratios. Even with off air

I just can't get my head around how some shows show full screen, some 4x3 shows, have that thin black bars top and bottom, and some are letterboxed (broadcasted in that format on purpose)

I guess I just don't know how TV works down under. In NTSC land, a 4x3 signal is one ratio and dimension, and plays on all the 4x3 TVs correctly... It seems that Australia is switching specs even with their analog broadcasts

Quote:OK I just looked at several TV channels during daytime programming. 7, 9, and 10 all have the same aspect ratio showing the thin black bars at the top and bottom.

I'm using analog off air. I know that some programs in primetime give me ful screen, and some also give the black bars. I think it has to do with the display rectangle that's actually being broadcast.

Yeah, this could be the intended behaviour of the broadcaster.

Often in this part of the world the transmit 16:9 content as 14:9 within a 4:3 frame on analog systems, which means a little bit of picture is clipped from the left/right of the screen, and snall black bars added to the top/bottom of the picture. The picture should look this same way on a regular TV or in GB-PVR's live tv.

This is usually for a compromise during the transition of all stuff eventually moving to 16:9, but needing to keep 4:3 set owners happy for now.

sub Wrote:Yeah, this could be the intended behaviour of the broadcaster.

Often in this part of the world the transmit 16:9 content as 14:9 within a 4:3 frame on analog systems, which means a little bit of picture is clipped from the left/right of the screen, and snall black bars added to the top/bottom of the picture. The picture should look this same way on a regular TV or in GB-PVR's live tv.

This is usually for a compromise during the transition of all stuff eventually moving to 16:9, but needing to keep 4:3 set owners happy for now.

And I'll bet that my NTSC content is squashed a bit, working on the PAL TV. That's easy enough to fix by adding a couple of variations in the config.xml

Soon I will have finsihed watching my NTSC content, and may only back up a couple of episodes.

I'm dying to start working with ZProcess, MVP and PAL. Should be fun...