menu & epg resolution on xcard

[bucknljake]

I couldn't find anything on this searching through past threads.

Is there a way I can make the program guide clearer on my tv?
it seems like the the resolution is being cut down so much that the text is hard to read. example 'E's in the program guide are missing the center horiz line.

when I have a pc monitor hooked up everything seems clear in the window.

I know you can replace skins for the menu and guide (among other things) would this help?

Current setup:
PVR-150 w/ 45 butt remote.
XCard : using Component output to a 27" TV
933mhz AMD
512 RAM
single 120g HD

thanks

[jquinlan]

The "FatBlueHighVisibility" skin can help because they increased the font size in the program guide and in the menu.
Found at the Wiki site: http://www.bladerhq.com/pmwiki/pmwiki.php

Also the new GB-PVR Media Experience from Reven uses larger fonts, but it is using more colors where the XCard can only show 256 colors at a time, so the colors may look awfull using that card.
http://gbpvr.com/cgi-bin....;t=2865

If either of those worked for you you can look at the XML files for the adjustments they made to the skin and you can apply them to any skin you may be using.

[bucknljake]

I tried the "fatBlue..." and the OrangeHighVis skins. while this improved readability a bit, the display menus (especially epg) still weren't great (of course the use of >256 color images in those skins don't help).
I have been using a copy of TVedia (formerly JovePlayer) which is another media center/PVR option that supports the xcard. It's menu display is great. even fairly small fonts are easily readable, so I know that small fonts are possible.

I'm using a 4:3 CRT tv, and sending the video via the X-Card using Component output. I've noticed that the PC window of GB-PVR looks like it's 16x9 size. could my problem be that my tv or the XCard squishing the 16x9 GUI to fit a 4x3 size. thus making alot of the fonts and other small things unreadable ??
if so is there a GUI window size/format setting in GBPVR ??

thanks for the help. this forum is a great source of info. once I get my box up and running well, I'll try and post a mini guide for the hardware setup I currently have.

[Lucas_24]

I've tweaked the guide to my liking to make it a lot more visible on a TV. I'll send you a copy of it tonight when I get home.

[bucknljake]

So was I correct in assuming that the GBPVR menu is getting resized from 16x9 to 4x3 before converting the gui to mpeg & sending to the XCard? if so this would definately explain the picture quality degration

[sub]

bucknljake, does the picture improve for you if you set the XCards margins to zero?

[bucknljake]

I reset the margins back to 0 and the fonts seem much better. unfortunately the overscan is pretty bad. in the epg some of the description text cut off and other things along the edges.
I've found to make everything 'fit' on the screen needed 30x28x28x30 margins.

any suggestions?

[sub]

Its current using the XCard hardware scaling when you set the margins. Its obviously not doing a great job. I'll look into whether I can change to use software resizing, which gives me more control over the process.

[bucknljake]

thanks.

for what it's worth, it seems that the tv and recordings picture stays sharp. a good example would be the stats bars at the top and side of the screen on sporting events. so it seems it's only happening with the GUI stuff.

[sub]

Yes, I'm referring to the hardware OSD scaling functions on the XCard, which are only used for resizing the graphics. Video is separate