Anamorphic output + full screen questions (1 Viewer)

[hale]

Hi,


I'm tying to migrate from ShowShifter to MediaPortal but have two main problems.

1. I need anamorphic output for my widescreen TV from my 4x3 graphics card (gforce4 MX 440), but this option isn't available. using one of the widescreen settings then zooming the TV obviously results in a reduction opf quality.

2. In ShowShifter it was possible for me to have the main application with video playback running on my primary monitor and full screen video on my TV at the same time (Using the Nvidia gForce4 driver "full screen video" setting to autoselect. I believe this is only possible with Nvidia cards like mine.). With MP I find that I can still have MP running in a window on my main screen, but I now get the full interface with video running on the TV and I'd really prefer the TV just to show the video playback.

I know that the full screen can work (as with showshifter), in fact if I drag another window over the MP window on my main monitor then the TV goes to video only, it just goes straight back to full interface as soon as I drop the window i'm dragging.

Having the full interface on both monitors is better that what I got with MCE but is still not as good as what I have with ShowShifter.

regards,
hale

 

[hale]

Well, I've got a work around for the anamorphic problem, and now have anamorphic output to my tv.

Is there a suitable place for me to experiment with rendering settings/video overlay in media portal?

 

[illStyle]

Could you please tell us a little bit more about that workaround? I'm searching for something similar as well.

Regards,
Simon

 

[hale]

Yes, but it's particular to my setup.

First, my setup's pecularities. I've got a gForce4 MX440 based card with TV out, set up using "DualView" (2 seperate displays, not spanned, not mirrored). I've got the card set to use the "Full Screen Video" feature of the card to show a mirror of the DirectX/Video Overlay in full screen on my second monitor (autoselect "Full Screen Device" uses the TV) while the MP application is really running in a window on the LCD monitor next to the sofa (for web browsing). This doesn't use any extra processing power above that to just mirror the output to the TV in the graphic card which it can easily handle as the interface isn't exactly 3D virtual reality, is it. The card is set to 1280x1024 for the LCD and 800x600 for the TV.

I've read in lots of forums that you can't do this and I've given up arguing with people. It's in front of me working right now.

Now to get anamorphic output to the TV, I selected a wide screen skin for mediaportal then stretched the window to fit a 4x3 ratio (ie it looks a bit tall and thin on the monitor, but nothing I can't live with). I checked this bu setting the TV to 4x3 and it looks tall and thin, good news. hitting the TV's aspect ratio button 16x9 and the picture is stretched to wide screen. Nice usable anamorphic output.

This is far better than having a letterbox output from the graphic card and then zooming in as you loose a lot of pixels that way.

I'd still like it if I could just have full screen video in the TV, just video/dvd/DivX etc no buttons/inferface, and the interface and tv on the monitor, just as I do with ShowShifter and GotAllMedia. Then If I ever wanted the whole interface on teh TV I could just use a keyboard shortcut to send the interface to monitor2 (the TV) by setting up the nVidia software.

These are all things I used to have setup and working with an old Win98 machine and the now defunct ShowShifter. How long will it be before everyone else catches up with the past

 

[Noelix]

Alright so riddle me this... I have a similar setup with a similar Nvidia card, and I prefer my video to appear anamorphic as well and fill the screen, even if a show comes in at 4:3 and makes everyone look fat. Well that works fine and dandy for 4:3 shows, but for any shows that are letterboxed, I can't get rid of the damn bars on the top and bottom! I have analogue cable so it doesnt come in at 16:9, it comes in at 4:3 with black bars on the top and bottom. Did you find a way to solve this? Zoom only stretches out the video sideways, not longways. See screenshot for example.

 

[hale]

I'll re-instal it and have a look. (I had removed it as I've started using Got All Media instead.)

 

[hale]

Noelix, sorry, just re-read your post. You'll have to change the setting on your cable box, see if it's got an anamorphic output. Otherwise you'll have to change codec settings each time you change from a 4x3 to letterbox channel.


But, I'm glad I did the re-install. I've found that I can get full screen anamorphic video output to my TV *without* the menus being shown at all.

1. In the graphic card settings use "full screen video" set to autoselect.
2. In Media portal change the video codec to the nvidia one.
3. select a wide screen skin.
4. stretch the window vertically to match the output on your TV

The nvidia codec alows you to use full screen output via video overlay on the second screen, but you might need something different, like the updated vnidia Pure Video one. the default one has the unfortunate side effect of overlaying the video over the menus on the monitor. It would be useful if overlayed menus worked in MP as they do in other HTPC type software.

Anyway, the key is trying other codecs that handle the video output differently.

Get a picture on the TV and adjust the height of the window on your monitor until the tv picture fills the screen.

Job done.

Now, if only MP had an option to show video in a small window on the other menu screens then I'd be able to keep the picture showing on TV while browsing the menus...