Operating System Windows 7 & half fullscreen (2 Viewers)

[oakleez]

FYI, to people having this problem I have found a couple solutions/answers.

1. Spend $109 and get yourself an HDMI Detective Plus. This device basically reads the EDID data from a display, saves it, and constantly repeats that signal to a HTPC. This ensures that when you turn off your TV or receiver than your htpc still thinks the TV is attached and does not switch the resolution (which is what causes the half-fullscreen issue).

2. If you don't want to spend the money on hardware, I discovered something about my setup (listed below). I only seem to get the issue when my HTPC is rebooted without the TV/AVR turned on. I remote into my machine a lot for file management/etc. Apparently the nvidia drivers, windows, etc. does not remember EDID data so if the HTPC is rebooted with the AVR and TV turned off, then it will revert to 800x600 until the display is turned on. At that point, windows resets to 1920x1080 but MediaPortal is stuck in limbo. The VNC trick did not work for me unfortunately.

I have purchased a HDMI Detective Plus to solve my issue with the rebooting after a remote session because honestly, the $109 is worth knowing that I'll never have any kind of HDMI Handshake/EDID issue ever again. The only potential dealbreaker is that I have no idea if the HDMI Detective Plus can pass a 3D signal... but I'm still a few years away from caring about that.

Took me a while to figure out exactly what was triggering this issue... hope that helps some of the confusion.


My setup:
nVidia 240GT (Latest beta 260.52 drivers)
Windows 7 x64
MediaPortal 1.1.0 final
Samsung LCD TV
Denon 2310ci Receiver

 

[Count Filipp]

The VNC workaround seems to do the trick for me!

 

[Pom]

I have fixed this issue completely (and several others) by switching to the DVI output on my M4N78 PRO integrated graphics (from the HDMI output). This also involves running a separate audio cable to the TV but this is a minor inconvenience compared with the benefits its has brought. Beware though, if you have a LCD TV like mine in conjunction with a 'clever' nVidia driver then you might find that your PC audio output is disabled each time you reboot the PC or bring it out of standby. If this is the case then you will need to follow these instructions which worked like a charm for me:

How to: Disable sound output over HDMI for nVidia graphics cards - currysauce.org

This involved creating an EDID override driver for my TV and modifying it slightly (VERY easy!) When it was all working correctly i saw in nVidia Control Panel that the video connection was "DVI - PC" instead of "HDMI - Audio Disabled" (which it was before applying fix). Then i had a solid connection to the display that did not change as the TV was turned on or off. Of course this is just for nVidia graphics solutions....

Before this fix, i had no Windows sound effects - even MP wasn't making all the right beeps and clicks like it should when navigating around with the remote - so obviously there was a problem with the HDMI audio processing. Also, turning my TV off would completely stop timeshifting (?!!), then on turning it on i would have the resizing issue (all credit to MP though which managed to resize itself correctly 9.9/10 times). Also changing channels is much faster and smoother, especially flicking between HD and SD channels which used to involve the screen flashing black for a split second (not any more!)

Just one problem remains for me.... when i turn the PC on/out of standby from cold and turn on TV, for the first ~60 seconds i get a couple of black flashes on the display. I've put it down to voltages being slightly out of spec./close to spec. until the PC warms up... Who knows.

 

[ColinT]

I have had to rebuild Windows and MP recently and this problem apears to have gone away. Not sure if it is a Windows fix.

Basically now if I switch on the screen at any time the the window had halved in size, MP now corrects itself about a second later. This is using MP1.1 straight.

The VNC fix worked for me eventually, but needed repeating everytime I got a driver update. Not sure why but EDID did nothing for me.

Has the problem gone away for any body else?

Regards Colin

 

[Pom]

Colin - when you turn your screen on/off does it/did it stop timeshifting? i.e. if you left the TV playing when you turned the screen off, is it still playing when you turn the screen back on? This was my bigest problem that is completely fixed now. The EDID override business mentioned way back in this thread also did absolutely nothing for me either. The EDID override that is part of my previous post is completely different and worked brilliantly (it is only needed to force the display mode into DVI with audio output from the line out jack, and stop the nVidia driver from trying to be clever and setting the display mode to HDMI with audio via the HDMI link even when you didn't set it as such). I think the MP resizing itself is a feature that the guys put in to help out with this problem(?)

I couldn't get the VNC thing to work for me. Funny how same problem is fixed in different ways for different people....

 

[crazyfool]

I just tried the vnc trick but it didn't work, on restart the res defaults to 1680x1200, I change it to 1920x1080 using vnc but on restart it is back at default.
Is the issue with mp not following the windows resolution changes going to be fixed in mp or should I carry on looking for a solution?

 

[CypherMK]

I have finally fixed it using the VNC option. Yeah !!!!!

Three possibilities:

1. receiver on, TV on = display will be set to TV (In my case: 1920*1080)
2. receiver on, TV off = display will be set to receiver (xx*xx)
3. receiver off, TV off = display will be set to default (640*480)

How to fix:

1. Install VNC server trial on your HTPC.
2. Connect using VNC viewer to your HTPC while having the receiver and tv on. (This I don't understand)
3. Turn off the TV (possibility 2). If you see that your resolution changes to something smaller, change the resolution within VNC viewer to the one set for possibility 1.
4. Now turn off the receiver (possibility 3). You will see your resolution within VNC viewer re sizes to a default of 640*480. Again change your resolution to the one set for possibility 1. It could be that you need to uncheck the EDID override option to be able to select a high resolution. Not to set the refresh rate to the same as for possibility 1.

I don't understand this program, can someone explain plz. Especially step 2. How do I "connect". And what do I have to connect.

 

[blubserl]

hi!

i have the same problem with mediaportal after migrating to windows7. in the meantime i tried xbmc and the problem is there as well - it seems it has something to do with windows 7 and some hardware configurations (in my case an onboard ati 4200hd).

the default video mode in xbmc is "fullscreen inside a window". the other option "use true fullscreen mode" solves this issue. so i wonder which video mode mediaportal is using? maybe one can set it to true fullscreen mode as well?!

greetings,

blubserl

 

[gurabli]

I have the same problem It is so irritating that there are 3-4 very annoying errors, which if I'm not mistaken, related to using W7.

1) First of all, this half fullscreen. Do I get it right, that there is no way of fixing this right now? I do not want to buy any additional gadgets to fix this.
2) I randomly loosing the audio control, read somewhere that it is because W7 handling differently audio level. Perhaps a fix for this? Again, very annoying.

Any ideas maybe to fix these?

 

[jadz]

All my video issues resizing the screen causing MP to resize to half the window, are now gone with an updated NVidia driver for my video card.

I'm not sure if that solves your problem, but it is an easy one to try. I'm now able to turn on and off my TV as I like, with MP always exactly where I left it.