Black bars above/below picture

[steve909]

Hello all, first post.
I am using Win XP pro, a Radeon X600 graphics card for playback, and a Hauppauge 350 for recording. I've updated the radeon drivers and control centre, and have updated the Hauppauge drivers.
My problem is this: my tv picture (a widescreen tv) always displays with a black bar across the top and bottom of the screen, and some part of the image lost to the left and right of the screen. Its as if a 16:9 image is displaying on a 4:3 tv.
I've tried underscan/overscan, but there is not enough adjustment available to expand the image. On overscan I can't reduce the image to fit, it's actually too big and I loose some of the image.
I've set the desktop size to 720x576 at the moment, but that doesn't seem to make much difference. This also affects the windows destop display size, so I think it's a fundamental setting, perhaps rather than a gbvpr setting.
Can anybody suggest when I go from here?
I have searched the forum but I can't find an exactly similar problem.
Thanks in advance.

[pastro]

If you are using vmr7 or vmr9, try the f7 key to adjust the aspect ratio.

[Ted the Penguin]

what resolution is your TV? what are you sending the picture to the TV with?

[steve909]

I've used the F7 key, but hardly any difference, it still won't fit. I've tried overlay as well. I've tried the 16:9 and 4:3 settings in the playback tab in the config options.

I honestly don't know the resolution of my tv, it's a 16:9 crt UK PAL Sony, thats all I know! I'm using the composite out from the radeon to a composite in on the tv.

Thanks for the replies.

[sub]

Does the GB-PVR's menu fill the screen, or does it also have the black bars?

[Ted the Penguin]

well a radeon will make it easier, there should be an option for video mode in the settings for the TV (in your video card driver) this should result in a 1:1 pixel mapping. The problem with that is, you have a widescreen TV, so it may look stretched, since I dont believe there are actually more pixels on your TV than there are on a 4:3 TV. there may also be some overscan, that is your TVs fault

there are settings in GB-PVR to compensate for overscan, I am not sure exactly what parts of GB-PVR it is applied to, but I know it will compress the menu so it is all visible on the screen.

you can also modify the aspect ratios so they work for you, allowing you to put a pillarbox around 4:3 content, fill the screen with 16:9 content, and even remove the letterbox from 16:9 content in a 4:3 stream, allowing it to fill the screen like it should. this should already be set up, but it may require some tweaking to get it to look correct on your TV

good luck

[gEd]

you will get a much (much) better picture if you get a decent svideo to scart connector instead of using composite. Also I am wondering if some of your problems may be due to using the composite input instead of svideo.

Have you tried playing around with the arrows in ATI CC to modify the image?

I think that you need to get your windows desktop displaying correctly before you worry about the gbovr settings.

And you have definitely got the TV set to 16:9 and not auto/zoom/4:3 etc?

I have an old ATI card plugged into a panasonic widescreen tv using svideo--> scart and it was pretty much perfect right from the off.

[steve909]

Thanks a lot, impressed with the replies.
I agree with trying to get the windows desktop to display, but I'm having no luck.
I'll try and comment on the points raised so far in the previous replies:
1 The gbpvr menu also has the black bars. At the moment I've set it to overscan so I'm missing half of the date at the top of the screen.
2 I will try the video mode in the ATI CC.
3 I have no svideo output from the radeon, so I don't have the option to change leads etc
4 I've tried nudging the picture using the ATI CC but it doesn't have an option to shink if overscanned, or the ability to expand the picture enough if underscanned.
5 The picture is set to 16:9 on the tv. I will try alternative settings though, hadn't thought of that.

One thing I didn't mention before, the picture lost at the edges of the screen scrolls into view if I hold the cursor at the edge of the screen, or at the edge of one of the black bars. I thought that was odd.

[Ted the Penguin]

One thing I didn't mention before, the picture lost at the edges of the screen scrolls into view if I hold the cursor at the edge of the screen, or at the edge of one of the black bars. I thought that was odd.

always glad to help
HAHA you have posted some critical information, your resolution is too high for the TV and your graphics card drivers are cropping the screen to what it knows the TV can display, then letting you access the rest of the screen through scrolling keyed on your mouse "pushing" on the edges of the screen.

video mode should lock the resolution to the PAL standard, and this should go away. but if you dont use video mode you should definitely lower the resolution.

cheers

[steve909]

Thanks Ted but nothing helps. The ATI control panel says the tv supports a max of 1024x768 at 60Hz. I had it at 720x576 and 800x600 and 1024x768 but no difference. No difference in video mode either. F7 doesn't correct it and selecting aspects on the tv itself won't correct it. It's a modern P4 3.2 1GB memory machine with TV out, so I'm sure there should be no problem.
I'm getting fed up with this. The hauppauge remote won't work either and my channel numbers are wrong so recordings are just random. I was using BeyondTV and had some, but nowhere near as many major problems with that, so I'm going back to it.
I prefer the program guide and GUI of gbpvr, but I want to be able to use it!
Thanks for everything.