- June 27, 2005
- 46
- 0
This topic is about using standard definition resolutions for Media Portal which are 720x480 to NTSC and 720x576 for PAL should someone else want to do so. I am in a PAL broadcasting country where standard definiton is still very heavily used.
I created a 861B complaint 720x576 @ 50.00 - P screen mode using the NVIDIA Advanced Timings Menu for use in MediaPortal and output to my monitor through a VGA connection. I also mirrored the output to my TV set using S-Video where I switched off the flicker filter and set to overscan in the NVIDIA TV device adjustments menu. This gives a set-top box quality image on the TV set.
As you may now, these resolutions are not square pixels for both the 4:3 and 16:9 screen aspect rations. In my case, I have a 4:3 TV screen in PAL and even though I play 4:3 material, there is still very small black bars on the top and bottom where the picture is a little squashed as it is resized to 720x540 rather than maintaining the full native resolution at 720x576. For 16:9 material, is it resized to 720x405 which is also squahed when it should be 720x432.
I corrected this issue by going into the calib720x576.xml and editing the Pixel Ratio value to 10667, which is 1.0667. Although I could use the in-built calibration feature, it does not give as much precision as you can only step in 0.01 intervals, which can lead to a few pixels still being different between 1.06 and 1.07.
For reference, I calculated the pixel rations as below where 16:9 is refferred to a anamorphic widescreen TV-set:
4:3 PAL at 720x576: 10667 (1.0667)
16:9 PAL at 720x576: 14222 (1.4222)
4:3 NTSC at 720x480: 08888 (0.8888)
16:9 NTSC at 720x480: 11852 (1.1852)
As I use my computer for both desktop and HTPC use, I used an AutoIT script to call MultiRes to change the screen resolution to 720x576, start MediaPortal and waits for it to exit and then calls MultiRes to switch back to the previous resolution. I used AutoIT as it is fully hidden as opposed to a command line window opening up for .bat and .cmd files whilst MediaPortal loads.
The AutoIT script is as below:
#NoTrayIcon
RunWait("C:\Program Files\MultiRes\MultiRes.exe /720,576,32,50 /exit", "C:\Program Files\MultiRes")
RunWait("C:\Program Files\Team MediaPortal\MediaPortal\MediaPortal.exe", "C:\Program Files\Team MediaPortal\MediaPortal")
RunWait("C:\Program Files\MultiRes\MultiRes.exe /restore /exit", "C:\Program Files\MultiRes")
I created a 861B complaint 720x576 @ 50.00 - P screen mode using the NVIDIA Advanced Timings Menu for use in MediaPortal and output to my monitor through a VGA connection. I also mirrored the output to my TV set using S-Video where I switched off the flicker filter and set to overscan in the NVIDIA TV device adjustments menu. This gives a set-top box quality image on the TV set.
As you may now, these resolutions are not square pixels for both the 4:3 and 16:9 screen aspect rations. In my case, I have a 4:3 TV screen in PAL and even though I play 4:3 material, there is still very small black bars on the top and bottom where the picture is a little squashed as it is resized to 720x540 rather than maintaining the full native resolution at 720x576. For 16:9 material, is it resized to 720x405 which is also squahed when it should be 720x432.
I corrected this issue by going into the calib720x576.xml and editing the Pixel Ratio value to 10667, which is 1.0667. Although I could use the in-built calibration feature, it does not give as much precision as you can only step in 0.01 intervals, which can lead to a few pixels still being different between 1.06 and 1.07.
For reference, I calculated the pixel rations as below where 16:9 is refferred to a anamorphic widescreen TV-set:
4:3 PAL at 720x576: 10667 (1.0667)
16:9 PAL at 720x576: 14222 (1.4222)
4:3 NTSC at 720x480: 08888 (0.8888)
16:9 NTSC at 720x480: 11852 (1.1852)
As I use my computer for both desktop and HTPC use, I used an AutoIT script to call MultiRes to change the screen resolution to 720x576, start MediaPortal and waits for it to exit and then calls MultiRes to switch back to the previous resolution. I used AutoIT as it is fully hidden as opposed to a command line window opening up for .bat and .cmd files whilst MediaPortal loads.
The AutoIT script is as below:
#NoTrayIcon
RunWait("C:\Program Files\MultiRes\MultiRes.exe /720,576,32,50 /exit", "C:\Program Files\MultiRes")
RunWait("C:\Program Files\Team MediaPortal\MediaPortal\MediaPortal.exe", "C:\Program Files\Team MediaPortal\MediaPortal")
RunWait("C:\Program Files\MultiRes\MultiRes.exe /restore /exit", "C:\Program Files\MultiRes")