nvidia, 0-255 hdmi range

You can force 0-255 range in the NVidia control panel:

Video
- Adjust video Settings

On the right select "With the NVIDIA settings" radio button, then click the Advanced tab. Change Dynamic Range from Limited (16-235) to Full (0-255)

The known trick is to set a custom resolution: select change resolution, customize, then click on the Create Custom Resolution button. Leave video timings as they are. If resolution doesn't stick set timings to manual.

It's could be the native Xbmc player, it isn't the best quality. Try mpchc

Nvidia seems to compress desktop hdmi output from 0-255 to 16-235. While this works fine for TV, black appears as grey on PC monitor. It's not clear if this is intended or a bug. Look up sotti's old post for more details.

I don't know if this thread will help or not but I just read one thing where it says Xbmc converts all to 0-255


http://forum.xbmc.org/archive/index.php/t-78061.html

Try the RGB path. A custom resolution will give consistent (RGB) black levels for desktop and video, independent of application.

I went round and round with this and ended up switching to ATI. nVidia has a driver level issue here. What I found was that the driver decides on the color space over HDMI based on the presence of HDMI audio. HDMI audio = tv = 16-235. No HDMI audio = monitor = 0-255. Support confirmed the behavior, said they were looking into it and there was no commitment anything would be done about it.

Tried multiple configurations and EDID overrides. No matter what was set in the drivers I could only get 0-255 by telling the card was hooked up to a monitor and loosing HDMI audio in the process.

Greetings Bart. Thanks for posting this useful info. Hopefully this issue (and others) will be fixed through your kind effort.

Best regards.

So there's no possible way to get 0-255 with nvidia to tv/avr if audio is going through Hdmi. I swear I've talked to others who have accomplished this. You say you talked to nvidia and this problem exists and there is no work around?

There was no way for me to make it work. I could either get working hdmi audio and 16-235 color space or no audio and 0-255. Driver settings were all set to 0-255, and that was ignored. I tried multiple configurations:

Card directly into dvi port (using hdmi to dvi coversion cable) on the tv gave me the correct color space.
Card hooked up through receiver with exact same driver settings gave me 16-235.
EDID override in place to tell the card it was connected to a monitor gave me back 0-255 but disabled hdmi audio.
With no changes to driver settings, color space was 100% tied to hdmi audio.

I spent a whole weekend trying to get it to work before throwing in the towel and returning the video card.

And yes, nVidia support stated that engineers were looking at it but could not confirm if or when it would be fixed.

ATI cards have their own problems but at least I can get both hdmi audio and 0-255 color space over hdmi at the same time.

I use a custom configuration (EDIT: it's custom resolution of course, sorry, I'm typing too fast) with native, untouched video timings and get 0-255 with consistent black levels for video and desktop and full HD audio with no issues. It's just a "trick" to get around this old bug in the Nvidia drivers. But I didn't know of it before (and if IIRC I even tried helping BartMan01 and others with an EDID override) as I didn't have an Nvidia card. I just got a GTS450 to get the full LAVCUVID + madVR functionality and tried this "trick", and it really works.

What trick/configuration do you use to accomplish this Also do you know if it's possible after adjusting timings. The reason I ask is I have to adjust those to get 23.976.

The problem I faced was that with a CRT based display device, custom resolutions were a world of hurt. Most of the 'fixes' that I could find involved using custom resolutions - which are easy to do with most modern display technologies like LCD/DLP that are fixed pixel displays. Trying to get the precise timings down for a CRT (esp to deal with overscan) are a bit more work and had a learning curve I just didn't have the time for.

Tulli was a great help with attempts to correct using EDID overrides, but those alone didn't solve the driver level issues.

In my case I bought the ATI, got it to work properly 'out of the box', and returned the nVidia card. I prefer nVidia's CUDA but DXVA is catching up.

I am having a current issue with the AMD branded ATI drivers too though. They randomly decide that I have an HDMI to DVI converter in use and disable the HDMI audio until I reboot. Usually happens when the box is recording TV and has several hours of shows still to record that a reboot would interrupt.

It is extremely frustrating that neither nVidia nor ATI can seem to get something as simple as connecting to a TV to just work correctly.

Yes, HDMI cable and HD audio.

I leave all NVCP settings untouched and calibrate on the TV (don't use Nvidia settings). Video and desktop, and Media Center all match.

Make sure the custom resolution is actually applied.

Use the the AVS HD disc for calibration, but that pic looks good to me.

I haven't found that to be a reliable way test color space. I found in many cases during my testing that the color space was remapped so that 0 became 16 and 255 became 235, so I could see black and 'blacker than black' as separate colors but blacker than black was really dark gray and black became lighter gray.

The best way to test is side by side comparison between display devices with a movie like 'Batman Begins' with lots of dark scenes. You will quickly see what to look for to tell when the color space is correct.

Unless nVidia has fixed their drivers, if you are using a manually built custom resolution then you can get 0-255 + HDMI audio. If using any of the built in HDTV resolutions, you are getting 16-235.

Anybody have seen this issue before?

Last night, I updated my drivers for GT240 to the latest 275.33, doing a clean driver install. When I go to the NV control panel to create a custom resolution (1920x1080@60), I get a message stating that I already have that resolution in the PC list (which I don't), and it doesn't create the resolution. Therefore I can't force 0-255 RGB output to my TV via HDMI.

I dropped back to the 270.51 driver and I'm again able to create custom resolutions for ones that already exist. Other option may be to find the location in the registry where its keeping the existing settings and delete the one you want to re-create.

Do you have this issue: when I create a 23.976 timing by manually putting it at 23 Hz and then giving it timings of 23.978 it shows in my custom resolution lineup as 24, so when I go to make a straight 24 res it tells me I already have that res. Just to make sure that the 23.978 really isn't a 24 if I try to add another 23.976 res it just replaces the 24 that I have. So how is it possible to get a 23.976 res along with a 24 res in your custom res list?

My projector doesn't support 23.976 / 24 Hz so I've never bothered creating those profiles. Sorry I can't help more.

Do you use madVR? MPC-HC + madVR is an easy way to calibrate desktop levels.

I am having the same problem. Does anyone know how to fix or work around this?

If the Nvidia card is a newer model that supports audio over DVI (and the card has a DVI port), use a DVI to hdmi cable/adapter and you will get Expanded video levels.

I went back to 270.51 and created the custom resolution, then upgraded to 275.33 and it retained my custom settings - everything seems fine in that regard.