HDTV And Standard TV Support

[Geon106]

I'm running Media Portal through my TV which is a 24" Widescreen CRT, however Windows has the driver as "Generic TV" so its running on a 4:3 resolution(currently 800 x 600, 1024 x 768 is too hard to see on a standard TV), how do I get Windows to recognise it as a Widescreen?

I'm thinking about upgrading to a 32" HD Ready LCD TV at some point(when i get enough money lol) But my question is, will the computer display a High Definition image on the screen? Isn't HD just a higher resolution image so as long as the graphics card can go up to that resolution it'll be okay?



MediaPortal Version: 0.2.1
MediaPortal Skin: BlueTwo/RealMP
Windows Version: Windows XP Pro
CPU Type: AMD Sempron 2800+
HDD: Barracuda 120GB IDE
Memory: 1GB DDR 333Mhz
Motherboard: A-Bit K7
Motherboard Chipset: VIA
Motherboard Bios: Phoenix
Video Card: nVidia GeforceFX 6600 GTOC
Video Card Driver: nVidia Forceware 9
Sound Card: Realtek AC'97 Onboard 5.1
Sound Card AC3: AC3/Coaxial
1. TV Card: Jetway PCI TV Capture
1. TV Card Type: Analog Software[Not Supported]
1. TV Card Driver: Conexant BtX878 MPEG
MPEG2 Video Codec: BtCap, WDM Video Capture
MPEG2 Audio Codec: BtCap, WDM Audio Capture
Satelite/CableTV Provider: Telewest Broadband
HTPC Case: JDI LAN Carry Case
Cooling: Fans and Heatsinks
Power Supply: 250 Watt Micro ATX
Remote: PS Dual Shock Game Controller
TV: Sony 24" Widescreen CRT
TV - HTPC Connection: S-Video

[Flerbizky]

The later versions of the ForceWare drivers gives you the ability to create custom resolutions... 93.71 is out and really really good colorwise in my setup.

I'm not quite sure what resolution you'd want to run on a widescreen CRT, but I'm sure someone will jump in a tell you soon...

[Edit:] And you're absolutely correct. HDTV is nothing more than an upgrade to a higher resolution :-) (Well, basically).. So yes, as long as your Gfx card can handle it, you should be good. And since your GPU supports upscaling and decoding of HD material you've got nothing to worry about !...

Cheers,
Steff

[Geon106]

i've got the 93.71 drivers installed, how do you create custom resolutions?

[Geon106]

Just worked out how to create custom resolutions lol. I might try looking on google for the resolution that'll work best. Thanks

[Geon106]

Sorry to post 3 times in a row, but i've put in a 16:9 resolution which is apparently 1280 x 768/1280 x 720/1280 x 800 < whenever i put any of these in the TV takes the resolution but doesn't display the entire screen, i have to move the curser to the edge to scroll around the desktop =/

[aasimon]

You claim to be in the UK. So I will assume you have a PAL TV.
You need to create or use a res of 720x576 for 4:3 or 1024x576 for 16:9 at 50 Hz. (TV timings)

I will admit to not having tried this on an nVidia card. But the ATI 9800 AIW card I did it on (using PowerStrip) was so much better once I got the 576 lines working.
As for the monitor. I created a custom made monitor driver that claimed the Monitor would do 1024x576. (Again using PowerStrip).