Overscan/resolution change problem in 7MC

Ahh, the pain.. I decided I needed to install 7MC (I had a perfectly good VMC before this) in preparation for the release of the quad tuner DC adapter.. And forgot how much fun it is to configure one of these things!

Anyway, stupid problem. TV does not allow for "pixel perfect" 1920X1080. I usually set the overscan in CCC to compensate for this, and everything is fine.. UNTIL.. I start 7MC and it feels the need to mess with the resolution (there's change of resolution as the application starts) and the overscan settings (it's way off).

I would like to prevent 7MC from making any overscan adjustments or resolution changes (or, alternatively, just tell it to use the same resolution as the desktop and have it listen to me!). I had this configured in VMC, but I remember it was a PITA. I just can't get 7MC to stop trying to correct for overscan.. How can I tell it to leave the resolution and overscan settings alone when starting/playing videos?

I've done this once, so if you can just point me in the right direction, I'm sure I can figure it out again..

I've tried the television setting, that seemed to add even more overscan correction. Also, the resolutions are crazy, it doesn't seem to like 1920X1080 (and usually selects something else).

Is there a way to tell 7MC to just "leave it alone"? My resolution and overscan are fine in every other application, it's only in MC that it feels the need to mess with resolution (which screws everything up).

I am running 1080P w/overscan correction on in CCC. Desktop looks "OK" (because of the scaling). I'd like the resolution to "carry" from the desktop to media center.

Anyway, I've found something really intersting today. I can setup media center and get it to look "good" now. But I can't get the setting to "stick". I'll reconfigure media center, everything will look great.. Play a few videos/etc.. No problem.

Then, I exit media center.. Again, no problem, everything still looks fine. When I restart media center; for about 15 seconds, everything is great (correct resolution). Then.. For no reason at all, the desktop resizes to 1440X720 (I think) and everything looks like crap.

Any ideas why the resolution settings won't "stick". If I set up the TV every time I enter media center, it's perfect.. Why would they change when I exit and re-enter media center?

I am running 1080P w/overscan correction on in CCC. Desktop looks "OK" (because of the scaling). I'd like the resolution to "carry" from the desktop to media center.

Anyway, I've found something really intersting today. I can setup media center and get it to look "good" now. But I can't get the setting to "stick". I'll reconfigure media center, everything will look great.. Play a few videos/etc.. No problem.

Then, I exit media center.. Again, no problem, everything still looks fine. When I restart media center; for about 15 seconds, everything is great (correct resolution). Then.. For no reason at all, the desktop resizes to 1440X720 (I think) and everything looks like crap.

Any ideas why the resolution settings won't "stick". If I set up the TV every time I enter media center, it's perfect.. Why would they change when I exit and re-enter media center?

One more detail. If I go into:

HKLM/SW/Microsoft/Windows/Current Version/Media Center/Settings/Display Settings

I can see the resolution. I change the resolution (inside MC) and then exit the program.. When I look in the key (above) I see the resolution change (that I just put in) and the correct settings.

When I then (after shutting down media center) restart MC, the resolution changes (inside MC). I immediately see the change in this registry key as well. It's like, when I start Media Center, it goes in and automatically changes this registry key?

I did a custom resolution (and tried another stock one) just to make sure; nothing seems to have any effect on it; as soon as I exit and re-open MC the resolution is changed (from anything that I set the last time I was in there). Also, I tried "re-run setup" in Media Center to no success. I'm logged into the machine on an account with Administrator privs.

It's the START of Media Center that changes the resolution (and the registry keys). Exiting MC doesn't have any effect on the keys (they maintain the correct values).

One more detail.. I tried to do an EDID override, didn't seem to have any effect on the problem. Does 7MC read the EDID information when it starts (to see what the monitor can support)?

Man, this is the worst "plug and pray" problem I've had in awhile. I'm sure 7MC is trying to protect me from getting a black screen, but, at the same time, this is nuts. Why isn't there a way to "force" the resolution and prevent it from changing when 7MC starts?

Any suggestions or possible solutions would be welcome; I'm really at a loss for what to try next. Also, if anyone knows for sure if 7MC does any "EDID checking" when starting, that would also be very helpful.

It's funny, as soon as it starts it tells me "Your resolution looks incorrect". Well, NO CRAP, because you just changed it to some whacked out resolution!

It's rear projection (Samsung). 1080P, but not pixel perfect (that didn't come out until the year after my set). The "pixel perfect" problem I've worked through before (custom resolutions/overscan settings, etc). It's the "change resolution every time I start 7MC" that's got me stumped. I just can't figure out what it's doing this. I also just posted in the EDID override thread; I've got a guess that 7MC might be looking at the monitor capabilities when it starts and not seeing 1080P as a supported resolution (in the EDID) and then scaling it down. However, this is new behavior, VMC did not have this problem.

Thanks for the help; please let me know if there's more that I could/should try.

I've actually tried that (left the resolution at 1080P with no scaling) and that still has the same problem, as soon as I start 7MC it changes the resolution on me. I can then go and reset the resolution (inside 7MC) and everything looks fine. However, as soon as I restart 7MC, the resolution goes back to the old (incorrect) resolution. It's like media center is "stuck" on a resolution. Or (what I'm thinking) MC is, for whatever reason, doing some kind of "detection" and deciding that the resolution (that it keeps selecting) is the "right" resolution for my monitor.

It's driving me batty. I don't understand why the resolution won't "stick", it just doesn't make any sense.

"I have the exact same problem here, albeit with a different setup. I have an nVidia 9800GT (GeForce 191.07 drivers) with a Toshiba 37WL66Z LCD panel and 7MC (32 bit).

I'm using the nVidia control panel to resize the desktop to 1824x1022 to fit my screen (the Toshiba supports 1080i, not pixel perfect) and then select that same resolution in Media Center. Everything's fine until I restart MC and around 10 seconds later the resolution changes"

Yup, we have EXACTLY the same issue. Please let me know how your reinstall went, and if you were able to narrow down when/what caused the problem to start occurring. I've kind of given up on it for now; I just leave 7MC running all the time (just minimize/put it in windowed mode when I want to use the desktop); as long as I don't START media center, then the problem will never show up. It's a silly solution to the problem though; there's something programatically happening that making 7MC (my money is on some kind of "monitor check") think that the lower resolution is the right one, and that only occurs during the "boot up" of 7MC.

Please let me know what you find! Glad that you're having it with a different video card, that points to a 7MC issue, not something with the ATI/NVIDIA drivers.

Here's some of the things that I've tried so far:

EDID override
Custom Monitor INF
Reinstall ATI CCC drivers
GenFen DVI detective (to cache the EDID)

On a "rant" note. I've probably spent 5-10 DAYS of my life trying to make plug-n-play work correctly on different monitors/displays over HDMI/DVI. I don't think I ever spent more than 10 minutes any VGA connection problem. Why isn't there a "hard override" in all operating systems for these "intelligent" port types?? All I need (and everyone with this problem needs) is a check box that says "force XXX resolution, and don't let it change". It's not that darn hard.

Yeah, I have thought about that.. Unfortunately, the HDMI cable is buried in the wall; it would be cheaper to buy a new TV than to pull out that cable and put in a VGA cable. I'm moving to front projection soon anyway, so that "just scan" problem will be going away. But it's silly that Sammy doesn't have the option to "treat HDMI and VGA" on the models that we have. And yes, I think that we do have the same TV, mine is a 57, but other than that, I suspect it's the same device.

Nero,

You might be onto something there; I had a monitor connected (during the install of W7) on my configuration as well; I wonder if there's something "stuck" in there from the install that's pushing it back to the "old" resolution.

It's obvsiouly a Windows problem (since we have totally different cards and setups), I just wish someone could point me to where this data is stored/how this works. I'm sure it's a 10 second registry change (delete a few keys), but I have no clue where this could be stored.