adjusting overscan

[mrsparkle]

I recently set up a dual-tuner GBPVR (v995) system (PVR-150 & HVR-1600) using the latest drivers for the capture cards. I am using a Geforce 7300 GS to output the results to my SD television using s-video. I'm using the latest version of the NVidia PureVideo decoder with all the recommended settings. I'm running Windows XP MCE SP2 as my OS.

I'm really happy with the program and the resulting files... one issue I'm having is that the picture in both live-tv and recordings doesn't exactly fit the television. So what happens is that the edges of the picture are kind of "wavy" and slightly distorted. I'd like to be able to adjust the picture and crop it, so that these distorted edges are not showing up.

I tried to adjust the overscan in the NVidia driver setup, by shifting the picture over and zooming in to crop the outer edges. These changes help with the display of Windows on the television, but seem to have no effect on GBPVR television output.

Help! =)

[sub]

I tried to adjust the overscan in the NVidia driver setup, by shifting the picture over and zooming in to crop the outer edges. These changes help with the display of Windows on the television, but seem to have no effect on GBPVR television output.

That doesnt really make sense to me since GB-PVR is just an app displayed on the desktop. It'll use the same size window as the Windows desktop.

You could try tweaking the <HorizontalZoom> and <VerticalZoom> settings in config.xml. Try increasing these a bit.

[mrsparkle]

I'll try that. I may be using the wrong terminology in describing the problem I'm having. But I'll see if this works.

It might just be an issue with the s-video output quality on my video card.

[fla]

Are you using overlay mode with gb-pvr? I use overlay and the nvidia driver has separate zoom control settings for overlay. There's even a tooltip that pops up saying: "Not seeing any changes? Adjustments made here are only noticeable when video is being played and the application is using hardware overlay".

[mrsparkle]

I'm using VMR9... I was under the impression that VMR9 generally results in a better picture than overlay, esp. with PureVideo. Editing the config.xml file helped somewhat (I had a weird value set there for horizontal zoom & vertical zoom).

The edges of the picture on my screen are still kind of "warped", but I think that is a limitation of the s-video output of my video card (GeForce 7300 GS). I am trying to get a VGA to RGB cable... perhaps a component video connection would help resolve/reduce this warped edge issue for TV output.

[kayak4ever]

I have the same problem (see post http://forums.nextpvr.com/showthread.php?t=21759 ) and I am pretty sure it is not the s-video cable because we tried to upgrade to an s-video cable and consistently got snow; thus, we are using the regular old fashioned cable.

We tried adjusting the nvidea drivers but that didn't work either. I tried adjusting the horizontal and vertical zoom in the config.xml but didn't see any difference. Tweaking up seemed to make the picture smaller and I couldn't tweak downward since the settings were at zero. I will try again tonight.

I am so glad to hear that its not just me.

[sub]

We tried adjusting the nvidea drivers but that didn't work either. I tried adjusting the horizontal and vertical zoom in the config.xml but didn't see any difference. Tweaking up seemed to make the picture smaller and I couldn't tweak downward since the settings were at zero. I will try again tonight.

Are you sure you're talking about the right setting? "1.0" would be full screen, and if you make this value bigger then it zooms in (moving any rough video edges off the side of the screen). If you make it smaller, then it zooms out.

Regardless, does a screenshot show what you're seeing?

[kayak4ever]

This is the part of my config.xml I was trying to adjust:

<!-- zoom control -->
<HorizontalZoom>1.05</HorizontalZoom>
<HorizontalOffset>0</HorizontalOffset>
<VerticalZoom>1.00</VerticalZoom>
<VerticalOffset>0</VerticalOffset>
<!-- overscan control (border size in pixels) -->
<OverScanBorderX1>0</OverScanBorderX1>
<OverScanBorderY1>0</OverScanBorderY1>
<OverScanBorderX2>0</OverScanBorderX2>
<OverScanBorderY2>0</OverScanBorderY2>
<OverScanVideoAlso>true</OverScanVideoAlso>

Do I need to reboot between each try or will closing and opening BPVR be sufficient. I have a 32" TV that is 4:3 so I am now guessing that it is vertical scan that I should be adjusting downward to make the screen bigger. There is a small black gap at the top of the screen and smaller gaps at the iright and left of the screen. The side is wavy as it is for mrsparkle

Forgive me for not looking, but are there easy instructions for making a screenshot and putting into a post?

[sub]

Assuming your desktop makes it all the way to the edges of your screen, then setting the VerticalZoom and HorizontalZoom to 1.0 should mean GB-PVR will trying to be using the same size window as the desktop for displaying video.

People are often surprised that the video they capture can contain small black bars on the left or right, with jagged moving edge to the video. The overscan of your TV would normally hide this from you. In this case you might need to zoom the video to push this black bar and jagged line outside of the screen. Its more zoom than you'll need to use, but you could set <HorizontalZoom>1.20</HorizontalZoom> to zoom in quite a bit - pushing the video well beyond the displayable window, cropping 10% of each side of the video.

You shouldnt be adjusting downwards unless you want to create bigger black bars.