[mythtv-users] HDTV / Widescreen with nVidia FX5200

[Paul Gardiner]

Leigh Sharpe wrote:
> Hi All,
>  I have a Panasonic TV which has only Composite, SVideo and Component 
> inputs, no DVI or VGA. I have just built a Mythbuntu box with an nVidia 
> FX5200 in it, which has a VGA, DVI and SVideo output. The only one I can 
> connect to the TV, obviously, is the SVideo. I'm having a hell of a time 
> getting it to talk proper widescreen, though.
>  Watching live TV, or replaying recordings are OK, if I set the TV to 
> 'Auto' mode, so it adjusts it's picture to suit the signal being fed to 
> it, but I am having problems with the Myth menu. The TV enlarges the 
> picture vertically, and I lose the top and bottom of the picture.
>  From a bit of googling, it would seem that the SVideo standard only 
> allows for 4:3 signals, anyway, and the nVidia card will ignore all 
> attempts to change the resolution when using the SVideo output, so I am 
> left with the option of trying to connect to the component input on my 
> TV (which should also give me a proper HD picture).
> I have seen some reports somewhere of being able to connect these cards 
> to the component-in on a TV, but I can't seem to find out a) how to 
> physically connect it, and b) whether my card actually supports it.
> Any ideas welcome.

Standard definition uses the same screen resolution for both 4:3
and 16:9. It's up to the TV to stretch the picture to fit. With some
connection types (e.g., Scart) whether or not to display widescreen
or not is signalled on one of the wires. I'm not sure how that is
achieved with SVideo.

The resolution you should be using is either 720x576 for PAL or
720x480 for NTSC (probably the latter). You may well already
be using the correct resolution. The problem that you see
with the menu could be just typical overscan. Within the setup
menus there's "Screen setup...". That will allow you to adjust
away the overscan. Important though, you must also uncheck the
box "Use GUI size for TV playback", otherwise you'll scale the
playback wich will lose quality. (Any processing of the image
loses quality, so you don't want any scaling.).

Cheers,
	Paul.