Poor backround images with PVR 350

[sbrushey]

I have been experimenting with making a new skin for this great app but if I make a background with a gradient it looks terrible on the TV output of my 350. The vertical gradient outputs as a number of horizontal stripes.

Is there a limit in the number of colours?

Many thanks
Simon

[Networker]

Hmmm.. I don't remember if I read here on the forums if there was a 256 color limit or if that color limit only applies to the Xcard.

John

[reven]

some images just look like rubbish on the 350, gradients dont work well. but if you use either one of the picture plugins you can see that photos look fine, so its not limited to 256 colors, it may be limited to something but not 256. or it could just be the way subs doing the OSD.

[jmoger]

I agree with sbrushey. GBPVR limits the palette somehow for the TV-out of a PVR-350. I tested a gradient background in SageTV and GBPVR. SageTV displays the gradient correctly. GBPVR color-bands the background with a restricted palette. I've also noticed this color-banding in the guide when using gradients for the selected/recorded/conflicted shows.

[kmoore]

Has there been a final consensus on this? I've noticed the unsmooth background gradients as well. I'm guessing I'm going to have to get over it.

[sub]

Yes, it was limited to 15bit colour on GB-PVR to conserve memory, allowing for two complete PAL video pages to be stored in PVR350 OSD memory, allowing GB-PVR to switch between them.

There used to be a setting to switch it into 32bit colour, but that functionality was disabled a long long time ago when some other change broke it, and it was never fixed.

[kmoore]

Yes, it was limited to 15bit colour on GB-PVR to conserve memory, allowing for two complete PAL video pages to be stored in PVR350 OSD memory, allowing GB-PVR to switch between them.

The menu is 15-bit color? It looks more like 8-bit.

[sub]

Yes, its a 15-bit fixed colour palette. Believe me, a 8-bit fixed colour palette looks decidedly crappier.

[kmoore]

I've taken a picture of my TV with the main menu so you can at least tell me if this looks like a 15-bit color pallet to you. The grey gradient of the info window shows 5 discrete shades, which strikes me as pretty poor. Obviously I'm not going to lose sleep over this but I want to confirm that this is what I am to expect. Of course, don't mind the funny moire pattern.

[sub]

Thats what I'd expect.

I think you're not really realising how bad a 8-bit fixed colour palette would look. You've actually got a lot of different shades of blue there. With a 8-bit fixed colour palette you'd have no more than a few blues (and a few greens, a few grays, a few yellows etc)...

By '8-bit fixed colour palette' I mean that the colours were decided when the PVR350 is first initialised, ie a few of each colour. This palette is not optimized for each picture displayed, so it just has to make do with the very limited colours available.

8-bit palette would look like this: