Anyone have a Panasonic Viera?

[capone]

I'm getting ready to set it up w/ Fios and a new PVR box w/ a nVidia 9600 HMDI card. When I tested it out w/ my current box (w/ a 8800), it was beyond the screen range at full screen until I swiched to HD Format 2, and it un-zoomed/removed the overscan (or whatever it did).

I haven't had a chance to see it w/ the Fios HD, but will it need to be on HD Format 1? I guess what I'm worried about is some big headache of having to switch that manually each time, or having to frig around w/ the PVR to get it to compensate.

[wannabepvr]

Yeah I have a Viera 42" full HD - (last year's model). Great panel.

I am also using a 9600 (GT) and had a lot of trouble initially with screen cutting out about 5% all the way around. This didn't happen using the analogue PC connection - but then the resolution is cut to 1368 or so.

Eventually I found the right setting in the Nvidia menu to bring the display back in. I can't remember exactly where - but you found it once with the 8800 so you will find it again.

Anyway, I am not sure what you mean about HD format 1 and 2. I just switch through my inputs on the panel until I hit the right HDMI for my GBPVR machine and it works - every time.

[capone]

That's the thing, I didn't find the setting, and fixed it w/ the TV.

If you look in your advanced picture menu, you should see the HD 1/2 setting. If you have a chance, try it out if you have cable/sat coming in from a HDMI cable, too. I'm just currious if it has a negative impact, since it fixed the PVR problem.

If it looks fine, you should be able to undo your nVidia setting, and let the TV handle it (if you can find the setting again )

Btw, how is play playback w/ that card? W/ the 8800, I was able to go full-screen w/ my mkv 720 files w/o a problem. I'll have a AMD x2 64 3Ghz in there, too.

[wannabepvr]

I don't have any other devices with HDMI output to put into the panel. my GBPVR machine does it all. TV, DVD, PC games. Very rarely, I use the digital tuner in the panel for fast moving sports. But I hardley watch anything live, not when it can be recorded and comskipped.

The card is great - except I still see slight judder is fast pans, particularly horizontal, but also some vertical. Those ultra fast vertical credits after some programs don't look too smooth. This judder occurs on 720x576i as well as 1080i. It's not really bad, and most the time I don't notice it. Only really those fast sports.

I don't believe it is a decoder or render problem. And the 9600GT should have plenty of speed to give smooth playback. I wonder if it is a frame/interlace issue. Here is AUS we have 25fps PAL. The panel has a 100Hz refresh. So that should be fine. (24pfs and 30 fps NTSC can be a problem)

I wonder if it more a frame order problem with the top and bottom frames are being drawn in the wrong order. Maybe I should try deinterlacing.

[capone]

I'll let you know if I see the same thing. I'm going to use a STB for TV, because I want to avoid all the tuning issues. I am upgrading all of media to x264, but it will all be 720 not 1080 (due to file size).

Maybe check out that TV setting I was mentioning. If the setting you're using on the card is tweaking the ratio or something, that could be causing a little jidder or tearing, since it makes the computer and not the TV deal w/ it.

I do like the TV a lot. I got it at a great price ($850 at buy.com), and it was Consumer Report's 2nd best pick for 37" LCDs. The first was also a Viera, but it was the model w/ the glossy panel (like a plasma or laptop), which I thought would be annoying (my Dell laptop's monitor is).

[wannabepvr]

Mine panel is the 42" plasma with the gloss (piano) black surround and matte screen witch I think looks really classy. While the matte doesn't look quite as breathtaking as gloss - it does help with reflections and makes the panel watchable in daylight near a window.

These Viera panels have go very cheap now, with the 50" costing about what I paid for the 42" 12 months ago.... .... ... but the wife would kill me..

Anyway, with the video setting, really I am just telling the card to output 1920x1080 the same as the screen. Where when it was too big it was effectively enlarging the centre 90% of the screen (0.9x1920) to fit 1920 so I expect having this setting as close to a 1:1 mapping would be best.

I see there is a lot of talk on the forum about 'tearing' on Nvidia cards - I wouldn't exactly describe my judder as tearing - but still I have not set the "forced vertical sync" on as suggested - I will see if that makes any difference.

I have also set the deinterlace - 'on' in the live preview mode.