How to get full screen, not an Extended Desktop on tv-out?

[Deusxmachina]

This is probably more of a Windows XP question but figured I'd have better luck asking it here anyway.

I'm working out the bugs on a new HTPC. The new ATI 2400HD card is hooked to one monitor and the s-video is going to an analog TV. The lowest "second monitor" setting (TV) I can get on the card is 1024x768. The only settings I get for it are "extended desktop" and "clone desktop."

When going to full-screen, another PVR program outputs correctly to the TV with the TV set as "cloned desktop." VLC plays video files properly full-screen to the TV with these settings as well. But GBPVR treats the TV as a true "clone desktop" mode -- the video output is higher resolution than the TV is so the video is too big for the screen and you can scroll to the edges with the mouse, etc. The TV is being treated as a real 1024x768 monitor instead of a (640x480?) TV-out.

Anyone know what windows setting I'm missing for the svideo-out to properly fit the TV? VLC is a standalone player so maybe that's why it works well, and the PVR software that came with the tuner card fits the TV properly for some reason. The only codecs on the computer are the CCCP package, and GBPVR is set to defaults.

[stustunz]

dont use defaults for a start this will cause issues
have you tried making the tv the primary monitor

[Deusxmachina]

The video card is picky on what monitor is what. The svideo doesn't even work with a monitor hooked to the VGA output, only when the monitor is hooked to the DVI output and used as main. This is a new HD2400pro with the newest ATI drivers, and a one-week-old XP32 install.

I just installed PowerDVD to use the Cyberlink codec(s), and now a "send error report to Microsoft?" box comes up every time I bring up GBPVR. I then switched to the Cyberlink codec for video in config, and the Live TV does play (with leaving the microsoft error box open on the screen), but when enabling the TV (as second monitor) to use svideo for TV-out GBPVR the "Live TV" doesn't work and it says it can't find a tuner card.

That's really weird.

I had a constant error box like that the other day for seemingly no reason, and the only way I got rid of it was to uninstall then reinstall GBPVR, so I'll probably do that next to start from scratch. Meanwhile, I'll look through the forums some more to see what codecs people prefer. Everything did seem fine with the default codecs other than the original TV-out problem which should be a Windows problem/setting somewhere.

[stustunz]

its just if you use defaults windows can change things without you knowing
then one day you will go to play somthing and it will be crap
sorry so long ago since i had a ati card i cant offer any more help
although the card you have does sound like a good next card

[erik]

Did you try powerstrip?

[Koenie]

I used a similar setup in the past. I could not set the resolution of the TV output as low as I wanted in the main screen settings dialog. However when you take the advance page it did allow to set it to the exact PAL resolution and even to set the TV-out as primary monitor. I always used the TV-out as secondary monitor however and had GBPVR "start on secondary monitor" ticked in the GBPVR settings.

[Deusxmachina]

I checked out Powerstrip but didn't see any settings for two displays with one being a TV. I've used it in the past to overclock and other easy stuff, but looking at the guides for it, it looks a little daunting at the moment for trying to fix this.

Not much luck with making the TV the main display. From what I can tell it would limit the computer-stuff usefullness of this HTPC sharing a monitor with my main computer. I may have to pursue this route further, though.

I did narrow down the full-screen TV-out problem. I knew GBPVR itself wasn't the main culprit since VLC player and the TV card's software both had great TV-outs but Media Player Classic didn't. I switched MPClassic to overlay and the TV-out fit the TV like it should. I then switched config to overlay, and the old GBPVR displays on the TV properly as well. So, something's up with my VRM9 mode, and currently messing with that. CCCP and PowerDVD 7 are the only codecs on the computer right now.

Gettin' there!

[Deusxmachina]

I don't think it's possible to do what I want. I've read in multiple places now, (some here in seemingly non-related threads), that VMR9 can't display video on a non-primary display and can't do it on two displays at once. I have found that to be wrong, though.

However, what would easily fix all of this is if ATI Theater Mode worked with VMR9, but it only works with overlay. So that's the main problem that needs the workaround. Since the easy way out of using Theater Mode isn't an option, I figured first I will shoot for at least trying to get full video or at least a full desktop on both (to then maximize GBPVR) since sometimes I'm near a monitor to watch TV and sometimes near the TV and want it to play on both.

The trick I was running into is that clone mode works great other than being too large to fit on the TV, but Powerstrip only sees the second display to change the resolution if it's in extended mode. Extended Mode only lets me use one copy of a video. Once I hit "enable" for the second monitor in either the ATI software or in Powerstrip, it apparently switches to extended mode.

So far I don't see any way to have a cloned display at two different resolutions, and I don't think it's possible. Of course, this problem would mostly go away if I bought an HDTV like I should have already.

Using a regular video player that uses overlay would work fine for playing back files except I can't use the remote that way, (or now that I think of it, with Microsoft Human Services IR maybe I can, hmmm...), so that's why I'm trying to get all media files to go through GBPVRx2, and since x1 won't be updated much longer.

I tried clone display, maximize GBPVR on the TV, and then zoom out to fit it all on but the ATI preferences don't let me zoom out enough or make the output small enough.

Looks like I'll have to pick an "almost what I want" method and stick with that until I buy a 1080 TV. Figured I'd type up what I tried for future people who might have the same problem.

Oh yeah, and the "can't find tuner" problem went away if I waited 20 seconds. The tuner must have been resetting or something.

EDIT: UltraMon will do part of what I want. Clone mode with different resolutions, but everything including the mouse pointer is herky-jerky. I'm guessing the program isn't ideal for doing that or the video card simply isn't powerful enough. CPU usage was around 50% at most while playing a video.