MP as a Full Screen Video Overlay? (1 Viewer)

[heikoh]

Hi everyone,

I have a Nvidia Graphics Card. Forceware Drivers provide the great opportunity to watch videos as a Fullscreen Video Overly. It perfectly fits on the TV screen, with NO dark borders around the screen etc.

However, MP runs in a normal Fullscreen mode, not an overlay mode.
At the top and bottom of my TV screen, there is a narrow, 1-2cm wide black border, even if watching 4:3 TV programming.

I noticed that the border appears on every side of the screen on Vista, that's why I've returned to XP SP2.

Is it possible to run it as a overlay anyway?
Probably not due to the ActiveX effects, right?

Maybe anyone has suggestions to get rid of these blach borders at the top and bottom of the screen.

Best regards,

Heiko

 

[jburnette]

As far as I know it's not possible. MediaPortal will only render in VMR9, not Overlay. I have the same problem and have just gotten used to it I guess.

 

[and-81]

You can tweak the output of your video card to fill the screen. There's heaps of information out there about this, and special tools like PowerStrip can be used for custom timings to fine tune this even more.

Do a search of the forum, I'm sure there's info on this sort of thing in here somewhere.

But jburnette is right, MediaPortal doesn't use Overlay. It's an outdated and very limiting method. It's fine if you're just playing back a video, but it gets ugly when you try to do On-Screen displays and the like.

Hope that helps,

 

[heikoh]

Thanks for your reply.

But shouldn't there be a way to "hack" the overlay setting of svideo output of today's graphics card?

I tried several "tools", but none of them helped.
I have a Geforce 8400GS (figured that would be enough for a SD MediaCenter).

In a much older machine, however, I have a AGP Geforece 7600GT running in "Clone-Mode":
If there is no Video playback, I can see my Windows Desktop withouth any black borders.

How is that possible?
And why is it not possible with newer drivers?

Might switching to ATI be a solution?

Heiko

Hi,

you replied just the second I did

You can tweak the output of your video card to fill the screen. There's heaps of information out there about this, and special tools like PowerStrip can be used for custom timings to fine tune this even more.

Do a search of the forum, I'm sure there's info on this sort of thing in here somewhere.

But jburnette is right, MediaPortal doesn't use Overlay. It's an outdated and very limiting method. It's fine if you're just playing back a video, but it gets ugly when you try to do On-Screen displays and the like.

Hope that helps,

I tried PowerStrip, but that didn't work for me.
Maybe it doesn't work when only 1 TV-Screen is connected to S-Video-Out as the primary display.
Maybe my Geforce 8400GS is the problem, as I've seen on the PowerStrip page that that card doesn't support custom resolutions yet :-(((

Heiko

 

[and-81]

I remember a program called TVTool, not sure if that would help...

I don't think ATI cards are considered HTPC friendly these days ... Their drivers are causing trouble for a lot of people.

Hope that helps,

 

[heikoh]

Obviously from the huge variety of graphic cards I seem to have chosen the single one where underscan occurs and cannot be removed :-((

Check this (last post):
http://forums.sage.tv/forums/showthread.php?t=27274

My 8400 is from XFX as well, and also passively cooled.

 

[jburnette]

Isn't that how it always works out?
If it makes you feel any better this thread has showed me that there is a way to get my card to overscan correctly.

 

[heikoh]

Isn't that how it always works out?

Obviously, it is
Lucky for me the card wasn't too expensive, I "only" paid something like 50€ for it.
However, if I had known that problem in advance, I would have added another 30€ for the 8600 model in the first place.

If it makes you feel any better this thread has showed me that there is a way to get my card to overscan correctly.

You did find a way?
Maybe you can tell me.

Heiko

 

[jburnette]

Well, I can't test it right now but this tvtool that and-81 mentioned looks like it might work with my card (I've got an old FX 5500). I doubt this will work with your card though since it just flat out won't overscan.