DVD Playback not widescreen or full screen (1 Viewer)

[shawnwc]

This may not be a MediaPortal issue - but maybe I can get a couple suggestions of things to check.

I have a 50" Sony SXRD. GeForce 6500, delivering 720p to the TV via DVI out.

2 issues :

1. Windows XP and all apps appears to be slightly larger in all directions than the screen, that is to say that I'm missing a little bit of the top, bottom, left and right. I can see just enough of the START button to click it. This is clearly a video card issue - but any obvious things to check appreciated.

2. I know that only 16x9 DVDs should fill the screen, otherwise widescreen movies will still have black bars at the top and bottom. However playing widescreen DVDs in Media Portal plays them in the center of the TV, with black bars all around. I suspect this is a Media Portal issue - any thoughts?

Sorry in advance if there are lengthy threads about this already... I've been up all night fighting with this new PC and windows update.

 

[Callifo]

Have you used the screen calibration in settings and are using the native resolution of the TV?

Overscan on LCD screens are typical if native resolution isnt used. 1360x768 is the native resolution I believe (higher than 720P).

 

[webdes03]

I agree with Callifo- make sure you're running on the native resolution for the tv...

 

[montyq]

These guys are correct. Click around in your nvidia card settings to find the "overscan" button. Click that and you should get a window that lets you resize your screen to fit your tv. you'll end up getting a custom resolution for your screen. For example, I ended up with a 1232 x 692 resolution on my 42" plasma.

As far as watching movies and having them so small, I had a similar problem. If you right click in the movie you should get a menu to change aspect ratio's. Try changing it to stretch or 16:9. If the screen goes blank but you still hear audo, then you have the same problem I had. The only way I could get out of it was to buy nvidia's "pure video decoder" and set that as the video codec in MP Setup. Everything works fine now.

 

[mPod]

Try changing it to stretch or 16:9.

If you calibrated your screen inside MP you can choose "normal" and let MP decide based on source which aspect ratio to choose. That's the preferred setting.

 

[sderuiter]

These guys are correct. Click around in your nvidia card settings to find the "overscan" button. Click that and you should get a window that lets you resize your screen to fit your tv. you'll end up getting a custom resolution for your screen. For example, I ended up with a 1232 x 692 resolution on my 42" plasma.

I use the same setting on my FX5200. However, whenever I need to power off/power on (because of monitor issues...), the overscan settings are not maintained and I have to get into the overscan menu again. Funny thing is that the actual overscan settings (screen with slidebars) *are* correct, it's just not applied any longer.
I'm using the latest Forceware drivers 84.21.

Anyone seen this?

 

[wishywashy]

The "latest" drivers are 91.31
http://www.nvidia.com/object/winxp_2k_91.31.html

The overscan problem was fixed for me a long time ago, by an earlier 90 series driver.

 

[sderuiter]

You're right, off course, but just before I posted I made sure to check my driver version was indeed the latest....Page must have been served out of the cache... Thanks!