Media Center - TV problem

[coolVariable]

I just finished building my first Media Center PC.
P4 2.8Ghz in a Dimension 4700 with 520GB of HD space.
TV tuner: Avermedia UltraTV 1500 MCE
Graphics card: Radeon x300 128MB (came with PC)
connected to ... my regular TV (non digital).

Everything works perfectly BUT:
when watching TV (and TV recordings) I have a black bar at the bottom of the screen and below that black bar is a thinner bar of flickering green or pink.
This is not due to any signal interference before the picture enters the computer or after it is output (tried both antenna cable from set top box to PC and RCA video cable, also tried both with two different TVs).

DVDs, DIVX do not display this error ... nor does the normal MCE interface/the normal desktop.
Not even when I convert the DVR-MS files to WMV do I see the error ...

I noticed however that the MCE shows a wider screen TV picture than I normally see on the TV. (like watching a letterbox movie compared to 4:3 ... only the black bar is only at the bottom and the interference is VERY annoying.)

What could be the cause of this error?

Please help ... this is VERY, VERY frustrating after I spent so much time and money!

 

[coolVariable]

Up

 

[coolVariable]

help?

 

[ddwbi0]

resolution maybe?

 

[CVSiN]

try a different decoder..

I had to use the Nvidia Purevideo decoder to get all my issues worked out for my MCE.

only problem is it costs money..

 

[coolVariable]

tried the cyberlink, the nvidia decoder - both have this issue.
(I actually thing the cyberlink looks better)

 

[coolVariable]

Do you think I would be able to solve the problem by returning the Avermedia tuner and buying a different one (Hauppauge PVR 150 MCE)

 

[Philgag]

did you set your display in MCE to be on the 4:3 aspect ratio?

 

[Peter]

Analog TV does have data in the very top and bottom lines of video. You need to engage some sort of "overscan" or "cropping" mode, whatever your software offers, to emulate what "normal" TVs do - cut the margins off simply by having them off-tube.

 

[coolVariable]

Originally posted by: Peter
Analog TV does have data in the very top and bottom lines of video. You need to engage some sort of "overscan" or "cropping" mode, whatever your software offers, to emulate what "normal" TVs do - cut the margins off simply by having them off-tube.

You might be right but how do I do this in MCE?

And I do not think that this is the issue since the same happens when you see the small image when you minimize the TV to the small box in the bottom left corner - also the info bar and everything else display correctly.

 

[coolVariable]

Originally posted by: Philgag
did you set your display in MCE to be on the 4:3 aspect ratio?

Yes.

 

[coolVariable]

You can view a photo of the problem here.

Since Avermedia tech support has been very responsive (I am very impressed) I have decided to give them more time to figure out what is wrong.

I think the problem is:

- the card somehow displays the picture wrong
- the codec for displaying the image (is it the DVD codec?) does not work as intended for some reason

When I recorded something as a PVR-MS file and converted it to WMV I lost the image error.

 

[coolVariable]

I just wanted to follow up on this if anybody else ever encounters a similar problem.

Although Avermedia told me that the card was probably defect ... I figured out what was wrong.

Apparently you need to have a specific DVD decoder codec installed that works with your TV card and/or graphics card (not sure which it is).

For me the newest Cyberlink DVD software did the trick.
(Curiously the nvidia dvd decoder codec that you can download from nvidias site did not work - althought that is supposedly the best)