How to configure TV to display same ratio as movie on comp?

[leggomyeggroll]

So I just got the first issue done, getting colors to work.

Now I'm testing out a movie which is I believe 16:9 (wide screen), but on my TV it displays it as 4:3. So there's a distortion, and it looks awkward. How can I configure it to display either 16:9 or 4:3?

The control panel for nvidia seems so primitive, not many stuff you can configure yourself, just a bunch of useless wizards :T

Oh yeah I have a Geforce 7950 GT KO

 

[leggomyeggroll]

BTW, this is also known as Theatre mode (at least that's what it is called on ATI)

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

Is it just videos that are the wrong aspect ratio, or everything?

 

[leggomyeggroll]

Just video's. The desktop view on my TV is 1280 x 780 or whatever, and it won't fit on my TV but that's fine, I'm just using the TV as a display for video playback.

The way I did it was go to configurations and selected Full Screen and I selected the TV as the display for full screen. But it doesn't have a theatre mode which will correctly adjust the resolution/ratio to best fit with the video. Most of my videos are wide screen so it looks weird on full screen 4:3.

I've googled around with a lot of ppl asking the same questions but no replies to them

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

Are you trying to have the TV and your monitor going at the same time?

I think it you get the TV set as your main display and get the screen to fit correctly for it, then you'll be in business for the right aspect ratio for video.

 

[leggomyeggroll]

i can't use the TV as a main display (i dont think i can), but I managed to solve this by doing a work around. Apparently this is a bug with the new nvidia drivers (90.xx). THe work around is if you do playback using ffdshow, they can do the adjust the ratio correctly. Nvidia are a bunch of lazy bums who wont fix this but leaves it up to ffdshow -_-

 

[leggomyeggroll]

fortunately 90% of my videos are divx or xvid encoded so ffdshow can take care of it.

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

Glad you got it sorted out :thumbsup:

You can use the TV as your main display though unless they messed something up in the new drivers in that regard as well.

 

[brandonr23]

Originally posted by: YOyoYOhowsDAjello
Glad you got it sorted out :thumbsup:

You can use the TV as your main display though unless they messed something up in the new drivers in that regard as well.

yeah, it depends on the tv. It's not a problem with drivers

 

[Auric]

Both Nvidia's and ATI's TVO are defective and have been for a long time (beaucoup long time in the case of the latter). ffdshow resize is an annoying cludge. Another option is to disable Full Screen Video / Theater Mode and instead use the independent display mode (Dualview) and drag the video window over and run full screen. If desired it could be left there and minimized to the tray on the monitor, for instance, then any video file could just be dragged off screen and let go to play there.

If you find it frickin' annoying that the mouse cursor can be lost off the side of the screen with such mode, open Display Properties Settings and the additional display(s) can be dragged to any location around the primary one. That and the relative resolutions will determine the width and position of the path between them. In my case the TV is on the left so it worked out naturally to have the path there (and thus not on the right where more edge-of-screen mousing is done).

 

[leggomyeggroll]

Auric,

Your suggestion actually depends on the video player application. For example, Windows Media Player has to be shown in full screen or else you'll be stuck with the GUI of the application showing. BSPlayer would be a good candidate for this since the playback is not inside a GUI, however, I cannot see the video play back on the TV, it's just a black picture. Perhaps it has to do with the fact that I am using clone view and this might not be the case for dual view.

But I'm pretty happy with how ffdshow handles it, it can resize/adjust it accordingly and I won't have to do that if the video has a different ratio.

 

[Auric]

I am not familiar with this "Windows Media Player" you speak of

Media Player Classic FTW!

Seriousry though, there are a lot of fiddly differences betwixt various modes, players, decoders, filters, and renderers. Clone mode is a diff'rent grranimal than Dualview / Extended and most appropriate for Full Screen Video / Theater Mode where the player remains in a window (optionally minimized) on the monitor while full-screen on the TV.

Since that is broken, it is definitely Dualview we want so that full-screen playback is possible on the TV while leaving the monitor free for other schtuff. If there is a black picture then change the renderer although in any case it should at least work full-screen if not in a window (but windowed isn't the goal anyway).

I used ffdshow's resize border option to correct ATI's defects (incorrect resolution/AR & cropping) with success. With Nvidia, Full Screen Video mode did not quite use the full horizontal resolution of my TV anyway and the adjustments were inadequate (was not a problem with ATI) and while using the resize aspect ratio did initially seem to correct the wrong AR defect I noticed that 1.33:1 content was being vertically stretched slightly so that's why I gave up and went with the Dualview method as there are no quality issues.

 

[leggomyeggroll]

Yeah one thing about extended mode is that I will lose track of the mouse cursor. And the problem is that my TV is not next to my monitor, in fact it's across the room. I use it primarily to watch video playbacks. I did play around with what you said it works without using ffdshow, but i will probably stick with the ffdshow unless i run into some other issue where ffdshow cant take care of it, in that case I will use the tip you showed. Thanks!

 

[Auric]

Glad to help and just to expand upon losing track of the mouse cursor... my TV is SD so while the encoder allows up to 1024x768 for the purposes of minimizing scrolling in clone mode, there is no advantage in this case to other than the 640x480 setting. Indeed, the lower (and actual resolution) makes the relative size smaller compared to the 1280x1024 monitor so reduces the size of the path linking the two and thus the chance of losing the cursor.

Then in Display Properties the path can effectively be placed along the part of the monitor edges least likely to be frickin' annoying (to repeat). The other consideration is how easy it is to drag the player over a given path which is affected by the position, drag "anchors" on the player window and such. One potential issue if dragging during playback is not being quick enough, resulting in it getting stuck between the two.

 

[ethebubbeth]

Originally posted by: leggomyeggroll
Perhaps it has to do with the fact that I am using clone view and this might not be the case for dual view.

If you are using hardware overlay and are in clone mode, it will only output to your primary display.

If you use dual view, it should output fine on the secondary display.