Custom Resolution Guide for 1080i HDTV-HTPC-POWERSTRIP-RADEON - Page 50

I have a MYHD 120 with a ATI Transcoder and have never been able to figure it out. I bought the equipment from Digital Connections and find dealing with Steve quite difficult. My primary tv is a rptv toshiba 61" My picture quality is normally fine, but now that I am now connecting my nextcom unit to my computer and then replay it through either Roku, JVC30000 or the MYHD card, I am trying to pick the simplest and most dependable comfiguration. Also I live in a golf community in Florida and have no access to experienced locals. any ideas would be welcome.

Why would the "custom resolutions" button be grayed out for me in Powerstrip?

You have a bad cracked copy.

It's actually the trial. Do I need to activate it to get the full functionality? I looked in Options, About... and it says "Fully functional for evaluation purposes"

When I was using the vga cable colors looked really bad. The LCD only gave me an option to fix bright and contr. I didnt even bother, went back to HDMI connection. After some calibration dvds look really nice. I think they might look al little dull, Im thinking its because of it beign an LCD.

Just replaced my Mits WS-55807 with a WD-62628 1080p DLP. I'm planning to do DVI out to HDMI, so I am replacing my Radeon 7200 with a 9600.

The set will only take up to 1080i via HDMI. Anybody have working 1080i T&R for the new Mits sets?

Do interlaced timings work with the newest catalyst drivers? Any drivers I should avoid?

Sorry for all the Q's, but I have been out of the loop since getting my old CRT up and running at 1080i.

Are Omega drivers better than Catalyst drivers for any reason?

I have a 9800 PRO using Catalyst 4.9 and a 1776X1000i custom Powerstrip resolution with my Sony 10HT projector. Using DVI to VGA adapter.

I have read were folks were having trouble with Catalyst 5.4 and above using Powerstrip?

Would appreciate any comments on what my drivers might be best for me to migrate to at this time.

Thank you.

I have tried them a few times over the years and my opinion is that they are all hype. Just use the most recent catalyst drivers and you should be OK. No idea where the "doesn't work with powerstrip" stuff came from, mine work just fine, but with the newer cats you don't even need powerstrip, so I have no idea what these folks are doing wrong that they have to use it at all, much less can't get it to work.

jaynatguru,

Are you saying that you don't need Powerstrip with a custom 1776X1000i resolution?

Thank you.

Yes. I am using something like 1696/994 on my tv, using only the latest cat drivers, no powerstrip needed at all.

Has anybody had any experience getting the Panasonic CT34WX15 (34" Widescreen HDTV) to work with a Radeon 8500 to the HDMI port with a DVI-HDMI cable. I cant seem to get any resolutions to cooperate except interlaced ones, which flicker horribly), or 720x480 which looks huge. When I try other timings, I get scrolling blurred images. I know this has been a popular TV to buy, but I have been looking for about a week for some powerstrip timings to try to no avail. Can anyone help?

I am using the latest Catalyst drivers and it does have much more control over cutom T&R's.

Here is my story:

I have a 52" 720P DLP and WAS able to get a reasonable resolution on my DLP with just the Catalyst driver, I still had a bunch of the dreaded overscan that I could not fix without losing signal lock.


SO, I loaded up powerstrip, picked one of the pre-built custom T&R's for 720P HDTV.
It still was not perfect but better so with Powerstrip running, I tweaked the display with the Catalyst driver's Advanced properties page to:
1200x666 P which gacve me a 100% perfect picture.

By perfect, I mean that I had NO over or underscan. As a matter of fact, I had to be careful when tweaking Catalyst or I could get a bit of UNDERscan in either plane.

I saved,in the catalyst properties page, that resolution of 1200x666P as a Hot Key as well as another hot key for when I want to use 1280x1024 60Hz for my 20" LCD PC display (the recommended resolution for my model of LCD monitor)


I then deinstalled powerstrip, programmed my MX800 to feed the 2 hotkeys to my Irman/girder.

So now I can display the windows dekstop on my DLP and there is not a single pixel hiddden from the display.

Hope this helps anyone.

Joe

Well, I installed a 9600 with DVI. DVI to HDMI cable into the 62628. I downloaded the latest Catalyst driver (5.9) with CCC.

Not sure what is going on - the only display resolution in Windows is 1024x768 with 16 bit color. CCC reports that it cannot work with the adapter/driver combination I have. Tried using Catalyst uninstall tool and reinstalled with same effect. Any ideas?

I guess what I wrote above was not clear.

Not sure what CCC means but what I thought my message was that I NEEDED to use Powerstrip to get started with a close resolution and finished it with the Catlyst driver.

I have the the 9600 also.

CCC = Catalyst Control Center

Nothing you wrote is unclear, I just fail to see how it can help me when the adapter is only allowing me to select one resolution.

It would appear that I have a problem with my driver, but I have been unable to do anything to correct it.

BTW, I also have Powerstrip installed.

I'm having a Powerstrip problem. I used this thread a couple years ago to make a custom 640x480 resolution for my 32" CRT HDTV connected to my ATI card with component dongle. Didn't have any problems, other than the PS learning curve.

Now I have a 50" Sony A10 connected to my X800XT by DVI-VGA. Using Cat 5.9 w/ regular CP, latest version of PS.

Saw someone that was using 1200x666 in Zoom mode for 1:1 pixel mapping using VGA input, so I gave it a try. It says that Windows accepted the resolution and asks if I want to switch. I say yes, and PS switches to 800x600. If I look at the ATI CP slider, it says that it's 1200x666, even though it's not. So then I try a user defined resolution using the custom resolution designer tool, come up with 1216x684, it tells me I need to reboot. I do, it shows up in the resolution list, but when I select it, I get 800x600. ATI CP slider shows 1216x684, but it's not.

Why is PS insisting on 800x600 instead of what I tell it to do? Anyone else ever seen this? Perhaps I just need to uninstall/reinstall PS?


EDIT: OK, uninstalled/reinstalled PS, and now it actually sends the proper resolution. But even with PS working, I still can't get anything other than plain vanilla 1280x720 to work with the TV. Using 1216x684 or 1200x600 actually makes the display BIGGER on the TV... i.e. massive overscan... so it must be that ATI cards don't work as well with HDTV's via VGA as nVidia cards do.

I hate to ask, but I can't find anything here (the thread is way too long) and at PowerStrip.
How do you create a custom .inf file?

I uninstalled powerstrip, used the catalyst uninstaller, reinstalled with CCC, same issue, cat uninstaller, installed 5.10 with CCC, same issue, cat uninstaller, installed 5.10 with CP, same issue - all without powerstrip installed.

I'm starting to think I have a bad card. Anyone heard of this before?

Hi,
I don't think you can come out of the DVI port without using a transcoder of some kind. I've tried it wth a a dvi to vga changer connected to a vga to comonent passthru. It didn't work.

You either have to come out of the s/vid looking port with their component hoses or connect the ATI component dongle directly to the dvi out.

Even thoufg it has a 2 monitor setup, I have always just used a single monior setup and unpluged the dongle and replaced it with my normal va monitor cable when not using the tv.

Peter M.
PS you can also dnld Mlutirez (entechtaiwan) to switch rezes quickly on either your tv or pc monitor

I tried this over in Sony-land, but no takers. Maybe the powerstrip folks can take a stab. I have my desktop set to 1152x648 (a PowerStrip resolution within a resolution which I cooked-up independently years ago to prevent overscan). But the problem in this one case, is that I WANT overscan! (I think). See, there are some programs, mostly on PBS, that waste a lot of screen real estate. I know it's a network thing, but until they get their "act" together, I wondered if I could improve the situation.

Basically the show is broadcast (digital) with a 16:9 ratio inside of a 4:3 box. But of course on TV's like ours, we have black bars on ALL 4 SIDES!



So the logical thing to do would be to zoom it on the TV, but that doesn't work.

My question is what PowerStrip timings or other schemes have been employed to allow the "black bars on all sides" broadcasts to fill-up the screen? I figured that it might be possible to design a resolution with purposeful overscan to a very large extent. It's just that the TV (Sony, as seen above) tends to try an compensate, or just gives you nothing if you are outside of 'normal', so a lot of trial and error would be in order. If someone has already done it, that would be quite helpful.

--Dale--

Hi,

I ocaisionally see this on non HD channels. I always thought it was the result of something filmed in 2:35 which put bars top and bottom and broadcast in 4:3 while your tv is in 16/9 mode.

This would create a framed look.

Peter M.

I just figured out that when my TV gets a 720 based signal (which is the base resolution of my 1152x648 res w/in res), it TV's zoom function doesn't work. But if my TV gets a lower resolution, then zoom does work. So theoretically, If i created a, say, 480 based res w/in res for my desktop, I would get a similar black frame, but could use the zoom on my TV to get rid of it. I'm going to try that when I get some time. I wonder what 768x432 will look like!

--Dale--

Well, I worked on a custom resolution, but I didn't get it to work well.

I looked for a resolution based on 480 (thinking that the lower resolution might allow my TV to zoom). There were a few 480 resolutions in powerstrip. I knew I wanted 480, and I figured 848 just to get close to 16:9 ratio. When I tried it, I was surprised to see just a small bit of over/under scan; that resolution would work 'as is' rather than needing res w/in res. But the dang TV wouldn't zoom it! Foiled again. I think I'll need to get a software player that can handle transport streams and has some zoom capabilities.

--Dale--

Hello,

Has anyone used Powerstrip in conjunction with the Crescendo Systems TC2000 transcoder? I recently purchased one to allow my media center PC to correctly display on my Mitsubishi WS-55411 television. Installed Powerstrip and am having SOME success (I do get something on the screen - no black bars around), but I'm unsure that it is set *exactly* right because in Windows desktop mode, the screen flickers quite a bit (in the media center interface as well). TV looks okay but I can't help wondering if it could look better if I had the exact timing values as well. Any help would be appreciated!

I picked up this television for 569.00 open item at circuit city. Someone returned it because it didn't fit in their entertainment center and was in mint condition.

So far, using my comcast HDTV dual tuner DVR, pictures of both normal channels and HD channels is just flat out amazing. The only thing I don't like about the set is the lack of 720p support.

Currently I own a self-made Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 machine with a radeon 8500 card in it. I own the vga-to-component adapter from ati and I have all settings turned on except for 540p (off by default) and 720p (not supported by my television).

I was wondering if someone could give me a hand in what to do to best setup this television via the component inputs with what I have described above. I am assuming I should get the latest Catalyst Control Center (CCC), perhaps powerstrip?

Also, televisions shows that are in 720p display on my television in 4x3, but I am unsure if it's down converting to 480p or upconverting to 1080i, 4x3 mode or whatever. Can anyone enlighten me?

Thanks in advance for ANY and ALL help fellow members.

Hi Kenham,

I used an AIW8500dv with the ATI Comp Dongle and a Tosh 65H80 (2001) until recently when I upgraded the vid card to the 700pro.

Prior to ATI coming out with the dongle I used both AA (Audio Authority) and KD (KeyDigital) vga to component transcoders. BTW anyone interested in either one of those can PM me.

Probably after many hrs on the phone with ATI tech support with a multitude of HTPC users like us, ATI woke up to the fact that not only gamers and Photoshop folks use their cards.

The new Catalyst grouping is very HTPC freindly.

I have found over the years that it is definitely worth paying the small registration fee for Powerstrip (which is both a marvel and a bargain) since you will be resetting rezzez for the rest of your life and waiting for that help screen to wind down gives you plenty of time to realize how much your time is worth.

If you haven't heard the name Karnis in HTPC circles you soon will. He has saved all of us both time and frustration by publishing the "All you want to know but were afraid to ask" Bible of Custom Resolutions which can be found on the first page of the HTPC section of this forum.
I would reccommend that you print it all out. This will be the top group of pages of a file or binder you will create documenting tweakes in Powerstrip that work and those that don't with your particular display, otherwise you'll waste even more time.

If I were you, I would read Karnis's post all the way through before jumping into Powerstrip. It's also a good idea to have it right beside you to refer to while tweaking.

Just a small note on the vga or dvi to component transcoders. There's no doubt that the ATI Dongle is handy but it's also HDCP compliant. I don't use a software dvd player but I undertstand that most are HDCP compliant as well.

The nice thing about either the AA or KD transcoders is that I could use an A/B switch box to go back and forth from my HDTV To my PC Monitor, (thats right, I only have the ATI card setup for one monitor) I use Powerstrip's sister program Multirez (free) to create any rez my monitor or tv will take with a click of the mouse. With the other transcoders I could set a 1920 x 1080i desktop and with some software dvd players I wouldn't get shut down by HDCP.
With the ATI card you have to be connected directly to the cards output.

I alway's found problems (perhaps created by myself) in a 2 monitor setup and wondered if it pulled PQ from the other output. Its up to you.

Kenham, I suspect from your post that you have not had your display unit ISF calibrated.

I'm begging you to have it done.
It will make your set the envy of your friends as well as protect it from possible burnin (if you own a technology like crt or plasma) add years to its life and know one will be able to tell the diff between 1080 and 720.

Peter M.

I hope I don't sound like an idiot but what the heck is ISF calibrated?

Hi everyone, first post here.. I'd like to thank everyone for this great resource.. so far at least i've gotten to a step where I can at least post on here..

Basically. I'm trying to do my first computer threatre setup. I'm looking to primarily do internet, mp3's, general computer use, not necessarily dvd yet.

My problem lies in resolution and flickering. My current setup is:

Mitsubishi 55" (WS55315) @
PowerStrip timing parameters:
704x480=704,80,48,80,480,29,1,53,31327,1

Generic timing details for 704x480:
HFP=80 HSW=48 HBP=80 kHz=34 VFP=29 VSW=1 VBP=53 Hz=60

Linux modeline parameters:
"704x480" 31.327 704 784 832 912 480 509 510 563 +hsync +vsync

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I'm running a Radeon 9250 DVI out.

At the resolution I posted, im getting very little to no flicker, although some of the colors on the side of the screen are a little rainbowish, but it's tolerable. But my main thing concern is getting a higher resolution so I don't have to scroll left and right in websites. So far i've tried many different resolutions on the first page with no luck, and me being a n00b, I'm stuck and hoped someone might point me in the right direction.

Thank for any help or suggestions!

Kenam,
Please visit hdtv section of www.keohi.com and www.isf.com

Also go to general forums of AVS and print out "Custom timings & resolutions by Karnis"

Peter M.

Thank you for the information Peter. I have been emailing back and forth with "Mr. Bob". Much appreciated.