It there asetup that outputs TV resoultion?

[eimermusic]

Hi everyone.
After some bad experiences trying to use different HTPC-frontends I sumbled on Snapstream which actually looks like a working product.

My two main problems with HTPC as I know it is the frontend GUI and the output to the TV. Assuming that Beyond TV takes care of the first I just have that last problem left.

So I'd like your input on which (if any) Graphics cards / Tuner cards can output real video-signals (for PAL in my case). All cards I have come across and read about either just resize the Windows desktop and shrinks the whole thing to fit insite the TV's "safe area". The resulting image quality is quite horrible when compared to "normal" TV. Either that or they are PVR-350 style and only output TV and no GUI of desktop at all.

I will have the system hooked up to my TV, and ONLY my TV so I need to have "everyting" on that one video output.

I have seen some nasty hacks with special cables and manual settings of sync rates and things... Sure there must be at least one company trying to profit from those of us not interested in frying our TV sets after some bad soldering?

I humbly bow before your wizdom...

[jkoon]

I have a pc which is only hooked up to a TV. I use an Nvidia TI-4800SE graphics card with tv-out. To control things I use the SnapStream Firefly remote and their Beyond Media Basic software (comes with the remote). That allows me to navigate my folders and whatnot to play mp3s and videos.

Then to do tivo style things I use SnapStream’s BeyondTV. I should mention that within the BTV interface there are options for resizing the BTV interface so that it fits properly on your tv screen (and thus making your videos play back properly).

Does that help some?

[dequire]

I think he is more concerned about the hardware side of things (i.e. nVidia vs ATI vs. ???). I agree that nVidia or ATI or Hauppauge or someone should make a TV-out version PAL and one for NTSC that includes 128 or 256 mg. RAM for GUI and 3D accel, but not worry about optimized gaming.

Another option that might even be better would be a HTPC-only version of the drivers. Either way, this is an exploding market, and one that I would think these companies would be more on the ball.

I'm happy with my XFX fanless 5200 card, but:

* I can't use Overlay mode
* Had to figure out to set v-synch to 'on' on the advances settings page
* Had to experiment with 5 different Encoders
* Had to "find" no-longer-available nVDVD drivers
* Had to do the Reg hacks posted on these forums
* On top of that, many people still need to use Powerstrip or TVTool to get TV out tollerable
* Sometimes, when there is a version upgrade, I have to go through and do many of these items again!
* etc, etc, etc.

So I see his point.

[eimermusic]

Originally Posted by dequire

* I can't use Overlay mode
* Had to figure out to set v-synch to 'on' on the advances settings page
* Had to experiment with 5 different Encoders
* Had to "find" no-longer-available nVDVD drivers
* Had to do the Reg hacks posted on these forums
* On top of that, many people still need to use Powerstrip or TVTool to get TV out tollerable
* Sometimes, when there is a version upgrade, I have to go through and do many of these items again!
* etc, etc, etc.

So I see his point.

Exactly. These are the things I was hoping to avoid by spending a few $$$ on a suitable product if available. All these HTPC's from big OEM's running "Media Center Edition", howdo they do it? (they are not available in my country) I wouldn't spend lots of money on a brand name machine that just used a "normal" TV out.

I have even sucessfully soldered one of these together (Swedish text):
http://www.nada.kth.se/~feldt/vgascart/
... and here is the english forerunner...
http://www.idiots.org.uk/vga_rgb_scart/

It works and give good picture... but is really messy to set up and can fry your TV and card if done wrong. BTW. The swedish version has a much simpler soldering layout...

And since the SCART connector is also dubbed "Euro connector" I am guessing it is not so common in the US?

[archie]

eimermusic-

i didn't have to do anything fancy to get the picture on my tv. you are right, i don't think you could even find scart here, so i will be of little help to you.

but with my system (below), i just plugged a cable into the tvout of my ati 8500 and then into the tv. i would think that the aiw cards in europe would have an scart out. the only adjustments i made ( and i don't think you have to ) was to use the "show all modes" of the settings page from the properties of the desktop and chose 640 x 480. nothing to it.

i think most of us here didn't go through all that is posted above. i've a great picture, and i didn't do anything difficult.

again, this may be entirely different with scart.

hope that helps, archie

[RichDanby]

It think the issue is NTSC is 480-line, so a 640x480 display should look great on it. PAL is 625-line so don't get such a great picture, its been the thing thats been putting me of PVRs.

Having said that I have a Shuttle SN41G2 which I won't be using for my PVR but it does have TV out onboard and the nVidia drivers allow you to run user defined resolutions. (in the advanced display settings there is a GeForce 4 tab that has a change resolutions option which then lets you add custom resolutions and refresh rates). Its too far from a tv to test, but I expect this would produce good results.

The other option is to go for an LCD TV with PC input (http://www.dabs.com/uk/productview?quicklinx=3gcw) which in theory should give you a good picture if BTV handles the resizing ok - I'm not sure at what resolution BTV records, or what happens if you have BTV link sets with different resolution screens.

Edit: Just to say I've looked in the trial and the default video size is 352x240 but there are better presets and you could set up a custom size for PAL (though you have to dig in the web interface to find it and you have to dig in the help to find out about the web interface!)

If you have something like an LCD TV at 1280x768 in one room and another set at standard PAL you will have to do test to see what recorded resolution gives you the best compromise accross the two.

[archie]

the pvr 350 cannot record at "any user resolution." there are just a few that the 350 will record. i believe they are 480 x 480, 640 x 480 and 720 x 480 if i recall correctly. since it is a hdwr encoder, you can't just pick anything.

but, again, if you can get a video card that will allow you to connect to the scart, you should be able to get btv to use the card to scale to an appropriate resolution. it would be helpful to hear from any of the people actually using scart and btv, rather than from us in the US.

good luck, archie

[RichDanby]

If just looked at the Hauppage FAQ and it says: -Approximate file sizes captured with the WinTV-PVR-250/350?

The WinTV-PVR-250 will be able to capture MPEG1 up to 352 X 480(NTSC), 352 X 576(PAL/SECAM) and MPEG2 up to 720 X 480(NTSC), 704 X 576(PAL/SECAM).

So I guess it only shows the modes for the format your using. I'm even more confused on the number of lines in PAL now, most sources say 625 but some use 576. I'm fairly sure some lines are used for teletext so that might be the difference.

The reason for all this is to avoid any scaling of the image. If the incoming signal is 576 lines, and the display is expecting 576 lines, then you really want to record and output 576 lines.

[eimermusic]

Originally Posted by RichDanby

So I guess it only shows the modes for the format your using. I'm even more confused on the number of lines in PAL now, most sources say 625 but some use 576. I'm fairly sure some lines are used for teletext so that might be the difference.

The reason for all this is to avoid any scaling of the image. If the incoming signal is 576 lines, and the display is expecting 576 lines, then you really want to record and output 576 lines.

Now this is something I know a bit about. It's my job to know

There is a difference between tha analog signal comming through and what results in a picture. The full PAL image size is considered to be 768x576 if digitized i nto a computer. D1 video (DV cameras things) will digitize at 720x576. Nothing is lost, the line of video is just representet by a slightly smaller number of pixles. When doing Special effects and thing there are lots of things to think about because of this but lets drop it for now.

625 is the full number on TV scallines for PAL. Like you wrote, the "leftover" ones are there for teletext and other things. If you have anolder TV set that is out of sync you can see flickering white dots at the top (and/or bottom) outside the picture area. That is why they are not digitized by Video/TV cards. If we did we could look at the teletext of recorded shows, which would actually be pretty cool cme to think of it.

NTSC also has more lines that 480. Can't remember exactly byt prabably around 525 lines.

[merrypig]

Yep.

Pal = 625 actual lines, of which 576 represent video
NTSC = 525 actual lines, 480 of which represent video.

The remaining lines are used for

front/back porch - blanking used to permit retrace, positioning of video, processing
sync tip
captioning data

re 768 vs 720. Actually, a very very small amount of info is lost at 720 compared to 768 due to fewer sample points. The reason why the resolution changes however is to do with square pixel formats and maintaining the aspect ratio correctly.

If you ever look in detail at how the 2d desktop image gets converted to a tv picture, you'll marvel at how it ever works at all. It's really one quite horrible fudge.