4:3 skin ::: aMPed 2.0 final (3 Viewers)

[rilly]

Thanks

This is a great skin.

 

[Dadeo]

But that overscan-thing is a no-go for me. Everything worked well with Blue3++, I have seen everything on screen. But with aMPed, I really have problems with controls and gfx which aren't completely visible on screen (only at the bottom, everything else looks perfect). Not only the rss-feed, also other things.

Hey Moh, I am using 720x576 PAL and I can't seem to duplicate the problems you are having. Could you maybe post a full screen shot or two of the places where controls etc are not completely visible on screen at the bottom?

Is it possible you have a screen calibration set? Or have you tried one to make things fit on your screen? What kind of screen is it? TV or Monitor? How is it connected to your htpc?

If I can get more info and manage to duplicate your issue I might be able to help Joz come up with a solution, since I was the one who tested it on 720x576 and said it was OK

Thanks

 

[Dadeo]

RSS Feed

@ Moh:

Here's a screen shot of my Basic Home screen with RSS Feed on my TV (720x576). I gather it does not display like this on your screen

<edit>
My TV is connected via composite cable to my Nvidia card. I did have to adjust Screen Size and position in NVidia control panel to get it to look perfect. So perhaps you can do the same with your ATI Radeon?
</edit>

 

[moh]

Hi joz,

About the wrapping, the width of that tag is already 750 which is bigger then the intended screen. The only thing I can think of is that there's a linebreak in your weather feed. But that should be noticed in other skins too.

It seems that you did set the width of 750 to the #location-control, but what's getting wrapped is the #temp | #condition control

Regards,
moh

 

[Dadeo]

The #temp | #condition is also set to width of 750 ! Go figure. What location are you using for Weather? I can check it on my screen and see if I get the same results and maybe play around and try and find a solution for you.

 

[moh]

Hi Dadeo,

Hey Moh, I am using 720x576 PAL and I can't seem to duplicate the problems you are having. Could you maybe post a full screen shot or two of the places where controls etc are not completely visible on screen at the bottom?

Is it possible you have a screen calibration set? Or have you tried one to make things fit on your screen? What kind of screen is it? TV or Monitor? How is it connected to your htpc?

Here are some specs:
It's a 4:3 CRT-TV, 27" size. Connected via SCART/Peritel (RGB) to the VGA-Port of my Gfx-Card.
I use PowerStrip for calibration, and to achieve a sharp picture with nearly exactly 50Hz(I) vert. refresh rate I have to enlarge the picture so that a small area (top+left+bottom+right) gets out of the visible area. Thats called overscan, IMHO all (old) CRT-TVs do this.

Please see Overscan - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia for more details.

Takings screenshots of the effect isn't really practicable, since I have to take a real photo of the TV. Let's see if I can find my digicam

Thanks & Regards,
moh

 

[joz]

SCART to VGA, really? I was reading up on that before purchasing my HTPC and it seemed to much of a hassle since there are no real standards to achieve this etc. Basically it means you have to create your own cable (as far as my reading and knowledge goes)
I hooked mine up with composite too but by ways of an s-video adapter. My graphic cards sends out a composite signal on one of the 7 s-video pins, works great for me.

If you have an ATi card try the following, make sure the setting in the image is checked in ATi CCC;

 

[Dadeo]

Got ya! That's why I reduced my screen size using my Nvidia card control panel. How much do you have to enlarge the picture to get exactly 25Hz and when you say a sharp picture do you mean viewing TV analogue signal, video, MP text or everything. I totally undestand your desire for top quality!

It is a good point you are making, don't get me wrong, but you understand what we are up against trying to fit everything on a small screen with larger fonts. I am trying to do a version with even larger fonts cuz i still can't seem them on my 20" TV If we adjust the recommended 5-10% for overscan we will have to make a lot of elements smaller to fit them on the screen and many of them are barely visible for me as it is.

That said, if you can give us a list of all the screens where you have a problem (RSS ticker we already know, don't beat a dead horse LOL), we'll see what we can do. Depending on the number of screens and complexity of solving the problem it might be a quick fix or take a while!

 

[moh]

Hi,
joz:
I built the cable as described here: VGA to RGB SCART Direct Drive with ATi Radeon - works perfectly
I'll try the setting in the control-center as soon as my wife leaves control of it to me - it's currently in heavy use *g*

Dadeo:
I really understand you point of view. 'Fixing' it would be a lot of work an probably would break the current design.
No prob, as a worst case scenario I would fix the weather-stuff within Blue3++ an stay with it. Everything fits perfectly on the screen there

But currently there is still light at the end... hehe
Besides the RSS-feed on the mainscreen there also the video-info-osd - I don't remember the key to press, but during the playback of a video you can open a small box at the bottom (OSD) which contains some information about the current movie. This box is also affected.

Thanks and Regards,
moh

 

[Dadeo]

Actually if it is just the Video OSD (press the Info key or Y on keyboard while video is playing), that's a quick fix. I did that and wanted as much text as possible showing, sorry. But since you can't easily send a screenshot, I'd need to know how much to shorten it. You could try it yourself and let me know. It's just the videoOSD.xml and you can just reduce the height of the Plot from 70 to whatever works for you.

The thing about using Blue3++ is that it doesn't support the latest plugins, like the new TVSeries. I'm not sure if it will work with the latest MyFilms either. Maybe you don't use the plugins, but we added a lot of features in aMPed that I don't want you to miss out on Besides that, you are a great tester!

I think we got a fix for the weather stuff, just send me your weather location and I'll test it out.