ATI TV Out setup help

[gazoo]

I have an ATI 9600 PRO 256MB card. It has DVI, VGA and S-Video (TV Out) outputs.

I need some help configuring the ATI application - I can't seem to get it right.

I have it currently hookup to my 20.5" Dell widescreen monitor (it does 1680x1050, has VGA, DVI, S-Video, and composite inputs). I'm using this monitor as my 'testbed' until everything is ironed out. I'm switching between the VGA and the TV out to take a look at it.

I am getting TV Out, but it looks terrible. It seems to only want to go to a color quality of low 8bit, which looks terrible and fuzzy. Oh, and the resolution is 640x480 only. Is it normal to keep tv out forced to low 8-bit? Is it normal to do 640x480 or can it go a little higher like 800x600? I was hoping to get a little better. Does someone have suggestion to alleviate the fuzziness? I also get some of the screen not showing.

I tried to do a clone and have the main setup (VGA output) for 1680x1050 and use the tv-out as the second clone monitor. If this is not the right way let me know. I just want to see it working nicely for once, so I can't remember the settings when it's time to deploy this system downstairs on my old tv.

Thanks
My system is a P4, 1.8GHz, hauppauge 150MCE, ATI 9600 PRO 256MB.

[Koenie]

I am affraid you are trying to get more out of a TV signal than it contains. In the US NTSC has a resolution of 720 x 480. It is thus obvious that the image is quite blurry. Have you ever looked at a TV picture from half a meter away like one does with a PC monitor?

About the 8 bit color this should be possible to increase it to 16 bits or even higher (though on composite this does not make any difference any more).

[nitrogen_widget]

I think your main problem is the resolution on the monitor is too high & most likely the main display.

I've always gotten better quality if I made TV-out the main display.

also, 1680x1050 is a heafty resolution.
Maybe the card just doesn't have enough video memory to do that resolution & have enough left for TV out.

The other thing, your trying to scale a 640x480 resolution picture to your flat panels native resolution.

Probably 1680x1050.
It's not going to look good.

Not good at all.

[pBS]

the amount memory will limit the combined display resolutions...
so try setting desktop monitor to a lower resolution,[like 1024x768] and then setup the tv out to 1368x768x60hz for 720p as i doubt this card can do 1080p..
or if it stutters or can't do that resolution, use 1024x768 or 800x600...
highest one that is still smooth motion..

use vga outs if possible,or dvi if possible...if using svideo, set to 1024x768..

always use 32bit color tho...you may have to reset this after setting resolution..

also, may be your mpeg2 decoder...which one? dscaler should work nicely with that card with nv12 colorspace..or ati avivo one...

[daveid]

all of these suggestions seem fine. Howver, I would like to point out that you should not be using a clone mode or a span mode, I haven't had an ati card in years, so I forget what they name it, but nvidia calls it "Dual View".
With that set you can choose separate resolutions for your displays.
As nitrogen_widget explained though, any resolution other than your LCD's native (1680x1050) will look bad on it, but it will look just fine on your old analog tv.
I suggest you bring the old tv up to the computer, hook it up, reboot the machine. Set up a dual view configuration, and go from there. If you can post a screenshot of the ati drivers, perhaps I can remember what the setting is called.

[gazoo]

Thank you for all the advice. I played around with it last night and it seemed to look best when I lowered the high resolution panel to something lower. It let me get 16 bit too. I think you're right about s-video - the LCD is making it look worse because of the difference in resolutions. It would probably look better on an analog set.

It also seemed to help to swap the s-video display to main..that allowed me to mess with the settings more.

[Deusxmachina]

all of these suggestions seem fine. Howver, I would like to point out that you should not be using a clone mode or a span mode, I haven't had an ati card in years, so I forget what they name it, but nvidia calls it "Dual View".
With that set you can choose separate resolutions for your displays.

I have a 2900pro in one machine and had a 2400pro in another. My 7600GT does indeed have "dual view," and it worked great when I had two different monitors (size and resolution) hooked up, but isn't Dual View just a span/extended mode that can use different resolutions? That's how mine was working.

Regardless, I don't see anything in the ATI drivers to set two different resolutions in a span/extended mode. I was surprised it can't, so maybe it can and I don't see it. Third-party tools can do it, I think DirMon and RivaTuner can both do it, with DirMon probably being the easier of the two. It's easy to get lost in RivaTuner.

I first used GBPVR with a monitor and an analog TV and now a monitor and an HDTV. I always used Clone Mode since sometimes I watch TV on the monitor and sometimes on the TV, so any kind of span/extended desktop wouldn't work right for that since both need a full desktop depending on which one I'm using.

I originally tried just using the TV for tv-out full-screen video with the ATI (theater mode), but PVRx2 doesn't use Overlay, and theater mode only works with Overlay. ...took a lot of digging to find that one out.

Gazoo, you said you are testing, so what are the final output devices to be? Do you plan on hooking it to that downstairs TV and nothing else? What kind of TV and what inputs does it have? All this clone/span/extended stuff may not matter at all if it winds up only being hooked to one TV.

[gazoo]

Well right now I'm still playing around with it on the Dell widescreen. My final configuration will be on an old 34" RCA with S-Video inputs and the analog audio out will go into my home theater unit. I think I'm am going to go with clone mode, make the S-video the main display and leave the second monitor not connected - but in a pinch I can drag an lcd to the vga out and plug it in for any problems that might arise. I also have ultravnc running, so I imagine I will be using that alot to remote into it.

I'm waiting to get my Hauppauge HVR-1600 I just ordered to come in. I want to try out QAM channels - so I'm about to embark on that nightmare :eek: .

The main reason I built this one is because I'm getting quite a big collection of movies on AVI's. Some are existing DVDs that I have ripped, some are from my local friendly neighborhood bittorrent store ( ), some are home movies of the kid. I had been using a streaming box (Mediagate) to stream from my Dlink DNS-323 NAS over windows share (samba). However, I found that device to be somewhat limited because whenever a new codec comes out, your out of luck because it's hardware based.

Also, my wife sometimes wants me to record something and put it on a dvd. The mediagate won't do this, the cable company dvr won't do this, and to get the dvd recorder to do it was a pain. All I do now is set the program to record, let comskip do it's thing (my wife is very excited about comskip - doesn't know what it is but knows the whole pvr thing lets her get stuff without commercials), and burn to dvd with the burn plugin that I love so much. The weather plugin, the movie wizard (to catalog and index the avi's), and the cinema listing plugin make this software THE BOMB!

Anyhow, I will make another entry into this thread when I work out exactly what I did with the s-video and the ATI card.

I plan on building another dvr box after I get some more money. This one was built with spare parts and a pretty huge case. Next one will be micro atx with a nice shuttle case or htpc case.

[Ted the Penguin]

check "video mode" on the tv out in the ati configuration utility, that will output at the correct resolution. also i suggest that you hook it up to an actual TV when you are trying to play with the TV out, as your results will be much different than when using a monitor.

how many displays are going to be hooked up to this system? if its going to be a dedicated HTPC then I suggest that you only have the TV connected.

[Deusxmachina]

check "video mode" on the tv out in the ati configuration utility, that will output at the correct resolution. also i suggest that you hook it up to an actual TV when you are trying to play with the TV out, as your results will be much different than when using a monitor.

Heh, yeah, that's why I was bringing it up. I would have far less hours invested in the learning process if I had only ever hooked it up to one output device. Having two fulltime unlike output devices can be a pain. Should be pretty easy though with clone mode and a second output for emergency only.

I hear ya about the media stuff, gazoo. OTA analog signals only have another year, and the only decent way to record HD is with a Tivo-like device, and HD specs are set for a long time, so figured put a decent DVR together and enjoy it.

Funny to me, like many people here I have Windows Media Center and don't even bother using it.