Computer Input for Sony HDTV CRTs  

Trying to create a repository for general info on computer connections for Sony CRTs. I don't claim to be an expert at this, just an interested user trying to organize some of the interesting tidbits floating around on this subject in various places. So use all info here entirely at your own risk.

Much of this will be old news to HTPCers, but I thought a repository like this might be useful for others as well, not necessarily interested just in Home Theater, but also general computer connectivity for games, web browsing, etc. In the interests of keeping this thread on topic for the Direct View forum, it might be best to post any more HTPC-related comments in this other first-rate AVS forum. However, if anyone else has links and tips they'd like to add re basic computer connections for Sonys, please do.

I owe alot to AVS and it's members like Dan Bennett, Rick Bayer, dbett and others especially in the 34XBR800 thread. And hopefully this will return the favor a little.

Powerstrip Links
~ EnTech Taiwan: Authors of Powerstrip, a tool for creating custom display modes for video cards.
~ Karnis's Custom Resolution Guide for 1080i HDTV-HTPC-POWERSTRIP-RADEON
~ DEFINITIVE GUIDE: Displaying Custom Resolutions on HDTV! This is a bit dated but still has some good info.

Rage 3D Tweak
~ Rage3DTweak This appears to be an alternative to Powerstrip for defining custom display modes and resolutions on video cards. Haven't used it and don't know too much about it though. Some folks seem to like it though.

HDCP-DVI Links
~ DVI input on current TV sets Post #4 in this thread contains many of the relevant links I've found so far regarding HDCP-DVI inputs on new TVs.
~ DVI - A Practical Guide Great quide and thread. Lots of info.
~ Sony DVI/HDCP connect to a PC? Includes Ashley Saldanha's MonInfo in Post #4 for analyzing signals an HDTV DVI input will accept.
~ DVI connection to Sony 4:3 hs500 or hs510 series TVs. More from the Direct View crowd.
~ HTPC DVI ----- Hitachi RPTV Not Sony CRTs but interesting.
~ DVI Output issues with Sony HS-10 Not Sony CRTs but interesting.
~ DVI on Sony 2002 vs 2003
~ Is DVI all that amazing....really?

VGA to YPbPR Component Transcoders
~ Key Digital Systems KD-VTCA2 Transcoder
~ Audio Authority A960 Transcoder
~ DIY VGA to component transcoder Why not build your own, like Dan Bennett and others?
~ Digital Connection A retailor of the Audio Authority and Key Digital transcoders.

Video Cards with YPbPr HDTV Output
~ ATI Radeon 9700 Pro All-in-Wonder (North American version only)
~ ATI Radeon 9800 Pro All-in-Wonder (North American version only)
~ ATI HDTV Component Video Adapter This is a separately available proprietary YPbPr dongle that can enable component output for other specific ATI Radeon cards like the 8500, 9500 and 9700 series.

Calibration & Service Mode
~ Avia calibration disk
~ Video Essentials calibration disk
~ GWII FAQ For Grand Wega LCD projector, but with many pertinent ideas for other Sony displays as well.
~ KV-34XBR800 service mode
~ Tweaking the 34XBR800?
~ Some tips on Sony service mode Some of this info is dated and/or does not apply to current models, but still a few useful tidbits.
~ Lite Trintron Service Panphlet PDF Also dated, but covers the basics of the Trinitron service mode, including some geometry adjustments.

Comments on using "Jump" to expand 16:9 HD letterbox to fullscreen on 4:3 Sonys
~ So SONY 4:3s only scan HD in their 16:9 area?
~ Overscan Fix Starting at Post #17.
~ DVI connection to Sony 4:3 hs500 or hs510 series TVs.
~ 16:9 Enhanced Question
~ Sony HDTVs not fully ready for future of HI-DEF.

XBR910
~ 34XBR910 pc resolution?
~ Hooking PC up to Sony XBR910 via DVI
~ XBR910 FAQ

More Related Links & Threads
~ HTPC Forum FAQ
~ Are HTPCs Worthwhile for Direct-View CRTs?
~ Signal Processing on Sony HDTVs Discusses various aspects of how vide signals are processed on Sony TVs, including how to bypass much of the A/D-D/A conversion applied to 540p/1080i on some models, and get 540p to display progressively instead of interlaced.
~ Anyone got a HTPC hooked up to the 34XBR800?
~ Sony KV-34XBR800 FAQ - Page #24 Comments on computer input with transcoders.

Many of the above are discussed in depth in other AVS threads BTW. So a search on any of these topics should bring up a wealth of add'l info on them.

After looking at some of the test patterns below, it became rather obvious that my poor un-calibrated TV had some color balance and grey level issues. The grey issues remain on the back burner, but I devised a temporary solution to correct the color using the attached image below created in Photoshop. This probably worked very much like standard SMPTE color bars, only significantly dumbed-down so someone like me could better grasp it.

The Theory

The basic idea is simple. If the color balance on an RGB monitor is correct, then any primary video color that contains, say, red should look exactly identical to other primary colors containing red when viewed with only the red phosphors enabled. Therefore, the primary colors of Red, Magenta, Yellow, and White should all look the same with only red phosphors active. And by the same token, Green, Blue, and Cyan should all look black because they contain no red at all.

If the color on the monitor is not balanced correctly, then the above relationships break down, and variations in shading which should not exist begin to appear. Here's how I used the attached RGB Color Corrector image to fix these variations and improve color balance on my Sony TV for a computer input via the DVI connection. This required a bit of experience with the service menu to perform BTW.

Preparations

First I loaded up the image onto the computer screen against a light gray backdrop (this will be important later). I opened my TV's basic User Video Display Menu and made sure Hue was 50%, and raised Picture and Brightness to around 75% to provide a bit more elbow room to work with. Then in the service mode, I transcribed the default values for 2170P-2/RGBS and 2170P-4/RYR, RYB, GYR, and GYB. FWIW, the defaults on my TV were:

RGBS=7
RYR=8
RYB=9
GYR=9
GYB=6

Step #1 Color Saturation & Blue Correction

Still in service mode, I went to item 2170P-2/RGBS and changed it to a value of 1. This disabled the red and green phosphors leaving only Blue. Then, I adjusted the Color (saturation) setting in the basic User Video Display Menu until the 4 dark squares on the left all looked uniformly black, and the 4 light squares on the right all looked the same shade of blue. This was the most critical step BTW, because all the other adjustments depended on Blue Saturation being as accurate as possible.

If a near perfect match could not have been achieved on the Blue squares with just the Color adjustment alone, then I probably would have tried tweaking the Hue slightly as well at this stage. The factory default Hue of 50% was about as accurate as I could hope for though. So I left that alone.

Step #2 Green Correction

Next, I changed the 2170P-2/RGBS value to 2, to enable just the Green phosphors. I adjusted the 2170P-4/GYR and GYB color decoders until the squares on the top looked uniformly black, and the squares on the bottom looked the same shade of green. To do this, I began by lowering GYB to 0. Then I raised GYR up to 15 and slowly brought it down until it reached the point where the dark squares matched. Then I went back to GYB and raised it until the green squares all looked uniformly bright. This got me into the general ballpark, and then I tweaked the two settings a bit more from there.

Step #3 Red Correction

When I was satisfied, I hoofed it back to 2170P-2/RGBS and changed it to 4 to enable just Red. Then adjusted the 2170P-4/RYR and RYB items until the dark squares were uniformly black and the light squares were the same shade of red. (The light grey backdrop and 75% Brightness came in handy here because without any green enabled, the service menu can be rather difficult to read.) Coincidentally, 15 (the maximum) was the value that worked best for both RYR and RYB on my TV.

Finishing Up

At this point all the hard work was done. However, I went back to 2170P-2/RGBS and cycled though all settings just to make sure everything made sense in the Cyan, Magenta and Yellow modes as well. Finally I reset RGBS to 7 and saved the new service menu settings, and adjusted the Picture and Brightness back to something more pleasing.

FWIW, these are the new values I arrived at for a computer connection via the DVI port on my particular TV. Since there are other color parameters in service menu that can effect the calibration of the Color Decoders, these values should not be considered universal. Accurate results can only be achieved by following a procedure similar to the one above. These are shown strictly as an example from my TV.

Color = 37 ticks (~58%)

Service Menu
RYR = 15
RYB = 15
GYR = 7
GYB = 4

My monitor has had no previous calibration though, and it has some issues with grey levels as well. Once those are addressed, it might be necessary to repeat this process again. For a quick and dirty solution though, it seemed to work very well. Colors from the computer input have noticeably greater richness, subtlety and depth than they did before on my TV.

The maximum RGB values in the RGB Color Corrector image BTW are 210, just to err on the safe side. (I tested images with several different levels of brightness, BTW, including RGB 255, and the results were always the same.)

Also, this correction was designed only to improve the color balance for the computer input on my TV via DVI. The RYR, RYB, GYR, GYB settings have a global effect though so for better of worse, they'll alter the color from other inputs as well.

And the particular values listed above may not translate well to other kinds of computer inputs, such as a VGA transcoder or the ATI YPbPr dongle. In brief tests I did with the dongle, I noticed for example that it had much greater color saturation on my TV than the DVI input. So the Color value of 37 above would probably be much too high for it. However, I think the theory of this technique should be applicable to basically any kind of computer input. Values may differ slightly depending on which display mode (Pro, Movie, etc.) and Color Temp is used on the TV as well, although I did not notice much variation in this myself.

It's possible this pattern could be used to loosely correct the TV's color from a DVD player as well, if converted to some format the player can recognize (JPEG, MPEG, VCD, DVD-RW, etc.). It would not be a substitute for calibration disks like AVIA or VE though.

I'm not very savvy about computer viruses and don't know if they can be communicated via an image file like this. So for this and other reasons, any use of this image and the above info is, as always, entirely at your own risk.

Following are some other test patterns I created in Photoshop. Like the above color corrector, these are based on an RGB palette rather than the YUV palette that may be used on some calibration disks, so I thought they might also come in handy for checking color balance, gamma, black detail etc. from a computer input. They probably don't have any correlation to IRE values, but 0% = RGB 0,0,0 and 100% = RGB 255,255,255 in these images.

I suppose there is a remote possibility that the 100% RGB Colors could damage a TV not designed to handle fully saturated RGB colors. However if you're running your computer's display into a TV, then you're already risking this anyway, unless you've taken steps to reduce the overall palette of the video card in your display properties. IAC, use these at your own risk. The 75% Colors should be roughly equivalent to standard NTSC color bars though, I think, and they have an RGB value of 191.

I'm not very savvy about computer viruses and don't know if they can be communicated via an image file like this. If someone (a forum mod?) could check just to be sure they're not infected I'd appreciate it.

Pattern #2:

Pattern #3

Pattern #4:

NOTE: Post #133 contains more current info on how I have adjusted overscan on my own TV. Everything on my TV is calibrated for a single input and signal now though (for just my HTPC). A service manual would be very useful for this sort of thing. More info on that in my signature.

I've poked around other threads a bit and found that users of other Sony displays are working with some different settings in the service menu to adjust overscan than settings previously mentioned here (HSIZ, VSIZ, etc.). And with these new settings, I was able to achieve 0% overscan, perfectly fitting my computer screen with virtually no distortion at the borders, without utilizing the porch settings in Powerstrip.

A FAQ for the Grand Wega II Sony LCD PJ covers the following:

In the MID1 category:

MDHS Horizontal Size
MDVS Vertical Size
DHPH Horizontal Position
DVPH Vertical Position

And in the MID2 category:

DRHP Horizontal Position
DRHS Horizontal Size
DRVP Vertical Position
DRVS Vertical Size

voidvod84 also pointed out the following settings in the MID1 category in this thread:

MDHS Horizontal Size
MDVS Vertical Size
MDHP Horizontal Position
MDVP Vertical Position

And there was one other setting that proved useful to me in the MID3 category:

VDHP (This appears to scroll the image horizontally in 1080i mode.)

The default values of many of these settings are dependant upon what screen modes you're in. Some values will change depending for example on whether you are in 16:9 Full mode or 4:3 Normal mode, or a 480p or 1080i mode. They could also vary from video input to video input as well. So be aware of these changes when transcribing the original values before changing them.

My main interest is adjusting overscan in Full mode. From the above posts it's not exactly clear to me which position adjustments, MDHP/MDVP or DHPH/DVPH, are preferable for this. For the time being though, here's what I did to completely eliminate the overscan on a 1080i mode (960x540p).

First I restored the VSIZ, VPOS, HSIZ, HPOS, HCNT to their original factory defaults, since these were previously altered in earlier attempts to adjust the overscan.

Next I used the MID1: MDHS/MDVS and MDHP/MDVP to scale and position the image until the entire video frame was visible with a small black border around the image.

Even though the entire frame of the video image was now visible, some of my desktop was still cut off on the right side. So I used MID3: VDHP to horizontally scroll the rest of the desktop back into view, and re-center the image inside the black borders of the video frame. I probably would have prefered to do this with Powerstrip, but haven't had much luck using horizontal porches for this kind of thing.

Once ALL of the image was visible with VDHP, then I used MDHS/MDVS/MDHP/MDVP to tweak the picture to perfectly fit the frame of the TV.

I'm not sure if this was the right way to do it, but it seemed to work. As always, tweak at your own risk, and make sure to record the defaults first.

Thanks sincerely Eric (voidvod84) for pointing these new adjustments out on the HTPC forum.

Subject to change without notice.

Method of Computer Connection: DVI -> HDCP-DVI input
A word of caution that Sony does not really advise connecting computers to an HDCP-DVI input. Although I haven't experienced any negative consequences from this so far (knock wood), I recommend looking at this thread and the links therein, as well as the other DVI links in Post #1 and researching this further to familiarize yourself with the risks and real purpose of the port before considering such a connection. IOW, Don't blame me if your TV explodes. :)
TV: Sony 34XBR800 16:9 Direct View CRT
Display Card: ATI Radeon 9000Pro DVI
OS: Windows 98 Upgrade
Mobo/Chipset/CPU: IWill XP333-R/ALI/AthlonMP 1600+
Cabling: dual-link DVI-D
Display Driver: Catalyst 2.??
Monitor Driver: ????
Software: Powerstrip 3.4 (on trial)

Other equipment I've tried:
Radeon 9700ProAIW with YPbPr adapter
Geforce Ti4200
Geforce FX5200 (no go on my system)

Display Modes
640x480p@480p timing: So far results in a virtual desktop in any mode other 16 colors.
720x480p@480p timing: Achieved by directly editing the ATI registries, and also using the Custom 480p HDTV Standard mode in Powerstrip (with horizontal scan corrected to 31.5kHz). So far this is the only mode that appears to display in true 480p without conversion.
848x480p@480p timing: This is the only standard Windows mode that worked for me "out of the box" without reverting to a virtual desktop. It has a soft and slightly jagged appearance though, and appears to be converted to an interlaced mode by the TV. Other 480 line display modes such as 704x480, 864x480 seem to behave similarly. Overlays also don't work properly in the non-standard 480 line modes. They display with a black bar on the bottom. I suppose this might be fixable with newer Catalyst drivers though.
960x540p@540p timing: Achieved using the Custom 960x540p HDTV Standard mode supplied with Powerstrip.

Before the 540p/1080i bypass on my 34XBR800:
Flickers but is superior in PQ to the 480 line modes and requires minimal tweaking for sharpness, etc. Appears to be treated by TV as interlaced 1080i (IOW, alternate 540 line scans still seem offset as though they were separate fields), Overlays work good (to my amazement). Noticed some vertical phasing in the picture (which I believe originates in the TV's DRC/MID circuits) when using the original 960x540p/60Hz PS timing, Changing the horizontal sync to 33.75kHz, and vertical sync to 59.947Hz seemed to eliminate this.

After the 540p/1080i bypass:
540p now appears to scan progressively. I.e. no flicker and no offset of the alternate scans. Vertical phasing at 60Hz is no longer evident. See the bypass link above for more details on these changes.

1440x480@540p timing: Seems OK. PS Derived HDTV Mode. Seems pretty good for DVD viewing and no overscan.
1440x540@540p timing: Seems OK. PS Standard HDTV Mode
1920x480@540p timing: Seems OK. PS Derived HDTV Mode. Seems pretty good for DVD viewing and no overscan.
1920x540@540p timing: Seems OK. PS Standard HDTV Mode.

1280x720@720p timing: Results in virtual desktop so far.
1920x1080i@1080i timing: Results in virtual desktop so far.

The reason I suspect I'm not able to do 720p/1080i timings yet is because I'm still using Windows 98 and some older Catalyst display drivers.

Boot screens are visible on the TV.

Thanks, Dwe. :) And for the PS timing as well. When you get a chance, I hope you'll breakdown a little of your configuration as well so I can compare notes.

Still having difficulty getting the 720p and 1080i working, and not exactly sure where the problem is yet. Alot of possible suspects though (DVI port, monitor driver, video card, OS, PS timings etc.).

:cool: Rockin! Thanks for the tremendous tips, Dwe! Definitely gives me somethin to chew on.

This might explain why 1080i is given me some trouble as well. Sounds like the interlacing option in PS needs to be tricked into workin with DVI.

The GWII FAQ also discusses settings for color balancing the greys in the 2170P-1 category:

RDRV (Red Drive, etc.)
GDRV
BDRV
RCUT (Red Cutoff, etc.)
GCUT
BCUT

And the color decoders in 2170P-4 that many here have used for adjusting red push:

RYR
RYB
GYR
GYB

To give credit where it's due, this thread is where I first found RDRV, RCUT etc. mentioned.

Thought these also might be useful for gaging color balance and drift at different levels of brightness.

Pattern #6

Pattern #7

The GWII FAQ referenced in Post #1 above mentions these MID5 category items:

MHLY
MVLY
MYHL

These appear to be separately adjustable for each display mode (Pro, Movie, etc.).

Changing the first item, MHLY, in Pro mode from the default of 1 to 0 seemed to improve the clarity of DVDs for me. According to the FAQ this should disable the horizontal Y low pass filter.

Pro mode is the only display mode which has this low pass filter enabled. And I think this could be partly why it's always looked a bit fuzzier than the others, FWIW.

Thanks for weighing in on some of this, Dan. Hope you don't mind me bringin this over here since this all ties in nicely with computer input.

Re the MID1/2 new overscan adjustments, they do scale differently than HSIZ/VSIZ, but since there's a wide range of adjustment with the MID1/2 positional adustments, I don't really see this as a problem. The MID1/2 position and scaling items seem designed to work in tandem. Although they allow wider range of adjustment than HSIZ/SIZ, the MID1/2 adjustments are mode-dependent, while HSIZ/VSIZ appear more global in nature. So greater care has to be taken when adjusting/recording the MID1/2 settings.

There are many ins and outs to the MID1/2 adjustments I don't fully understand though. Which functions are best for which display modes and so forth. When I tried using the DHPH/DVPH to adjust position on a 1080i Full mode for example, they threw off the centering on other modes. There may be a very good reason why they do that. But I haven't sorted it out yet. That's why I went with just the MD.... settings on 1080i for now.

If you need to switch between many different screen modes on the TV, tweaking the MID1/2 adjustments until they're all correct may be rather labrious. I'm trying to limit myself to only a few: Full 16:9 1080i and 480p for computer input, and Full 16:9 480i for DVDs.

I'll take a closer look to see if I notice the out-of-focus look you mention as well with the MID1/2 adjustments, and try to figure out if some of these settings are altering the vertical or horizontal resolution, degrading the image quality. Some softness could possibly be attributable to greater overlap of the scan lines in the tighter underscanned image. Lowering the Picture setting (and blooming) may help with this a bit. It's much easier to tweak the MID1/2 adjustments to get a good fit of my computer screen with minimal distortion though, so I'm hoping those will do the job.

Another item I've looked at is MID3/VDHS for horizontal scaling. This item appears a bit touchy though, and easily throws the picture out of sync. So I'm not sure I should be messin with it. As always, use at your own risk.

I'm glad you pointed these things out, Dan. How one approachs calibration apparently depends alot on the different sources and applications involved. Since I don't currently have a DVD player on my PC or the AVIA disk, the quick fix above was simply a temporary solution improvised to get the color of RGB applications on my PC more in the ballpark. (Ironically, the color on my TV is probably now better calibrated than my computer monitor.)

This quick fix definitely isn't rigorous enough to take into account all configurations of computer and video input though. Unless one intends to route all video sources to the TV through the computer (as with an HTPC), there is perhaps an inherent flaw in the idea of correcting the TV to improve the picture from the computer input, because this will alter the color for all the other inputs on the TV as well, and not necessarily in the most constructive manner. If the original color decoder values have been correctly recorded though, undoing any damage should be a fairly simple matter. Good point re the RYR, RYB color decoders.

I'm not sure I'm followin all of this, but it sounds pretty interesting. So basically you're using the sync polarity to automatically change the color correction within Powerstrip, right?

I'm afraid I'm still a bit of a Powerstrip neophyte. If I could just get a true interlaced 1080i mode workin thrugh DVI, I'd be happy though. :)

After color correcting my 34XBR800 TV for the computer input, I noticed the color on my STB DVD player was now looking over-saturated, so here's how I resolved the conflict between the two video inputs.

First, I converted the Quick Color Corrector image in Post #2 to an SVCD, and put it in the DVD player. With this image, I determined the correct Color saturation needed for the DVD player per Post #2- Step #1. On my TV the value needed for the player was 50%.

So I set the Color setting in the User Menu back to the default of 50% (32 ticks). This, of course, made the computer input look de-saturated. So to fix this, I simply went into service mode and changed item 2170P-4/SCOL to 37 with the TV switched to the DVI input where the computer was attached.

2170P-4/SCOL is apparently the Sub-color adjustment for different video inputs. If you want to change the color of one video input relative to another, SCOL seems to be designed for this. Apparently, all one does is switch the TV to the video input desired, change the value and then store it. Anyway, changing that one item in the service menu for the DVI input rectified the conflict. And now both the DVD player and computer have correct color.

For good measure, I cycled through all the different 2170P-2/RGBS color modes with the Color Corrector on both devices after making this change, just to make sure the RYR/RYB/GYR/GYB Color decoder settings were acceptable for both devices, and they all passed. Now both devices are color corrected and look sweet. And here's what I ended up with...

User Menu
Color = 32 ticks or 50%

Service Menu Category 2170P-4
SCOL (for DVI input 1080i 16:9 Full mode) = 37
SCOL (for DVD YPbPr input 480i 16:9 Full mode) = 32
RYR = 15
RYB = 15
GYR = 7
GYB = 4

(Another setting that may perhaps need to be looked at for the most precise color is 2170P-4/SHUE, the sub-hue for each input.)

I don't know if this was the correct way to go about all this, but it seemed to work and make sense to me. As ever, record all defaults for each input/mode and use at your own risk.

Also, FWIW disabling the MID5/MHLY item for Pro mode as mentioned in Post #15 above has helped to make that mode much more watchable IMHO.

I was actually hoping to get the TV to sync in a genuine 720p mode, rather than 720rez inside of 1080i. Whenever I attempt to use a true 720p mode, PS (or my ATI drivers) reverts it to 480p. I can fool the TV into thinking it's receiveing 720p by changing the horizontal sync to 45Khz, and then boosting the vertical resolution to about 750-760 liines. But the picture isn't stable, and it still acts like a virtual desktop (when I can see it). :) Plus I'll probably break my TV if I continue to try this kind of thing. :)

I'd like to get some genuine 1080i modes working as well though. So I'll definitely give your suggestions a try, including the new overscan adjustments. The new tips are much appreciated, Below 30.

mpmd,

If I could help you I would, but I'm as much or more in the dark as you are re Powerstrip. The paradigm of this program still largely eludes me. I wish it came with some/any sort of instructions beyond the pop-up help, to kind of talk you through the process. I still feel like the folks who "get it" are part of the club, and I'm not.

That said, I think Below 30 may be a few steps ahead of us on some of this, and he's already gotten past the "how can I get this resolution to be displayed" point, the techniques for which seem to vary depending on variety of factors, including the video card you're using, the version of the display drivers, the monitor driver, the configuration of the primary/clone desktop icons, the OS and possibly even the service pack, etc.

If you're not in the same ballpark as other folks on this stuff, then you may be left out in the cold. My knowledge of all this is extremely limited, but FWIW, here's what I can offer...

First, 720p is gonna be easier for some folks to achieve than others simply because their displays natively support that mode. Since the Sony's don't natively do 720p, but rather convert it to other modes, the TVs tend to return only 480 and 540 line modes as acceptable resolutions to PS and Windows. Getting around that is one of many problems.

Trying different monitor drivers is an idea. And I also noticed someone mention that you can attempt to unlock other resolutions that Windows is preventing from being used by double-clicking the Monitor icon next to the Resolution Slider in the first PS Display Profiles screen. Under XP there is also apparently a listing of all the supported modes that you can pull up in Display Properties after loading a new monitor driver, so you can check to see if the modes you want to use are among them. (Regrettably, Win98 does not have this capability).

The video card and version of Catalyst also enter into the equation. I'm not sure exactly how these different elements all relate, but it seems as though most folks who are getting 1080i and 720p to work seem to be using recent Cat drivers with a 9500 or higher Radeon.

The configuration of the Clone/Primary Desktop icons in the Display Properties/Display Devices menu also seems to be important, both in terms of creating a resolution, and getting it to display on your TV. Some people seem to have it configured one way for their particular flavor of card/drivers, while others have it configured another way. Some get virtual desktops with the HDTV set to primary, while others do not.

However, if you try to do anything with a resoluton in PS after it's been reverted to a virtual desktop (480p) mode (by Powerstrip?), then you seem to be S.O.L. So I guess you've got to find the right configuration of those icons that will prevent that from happening.

There's also some business about disabling tiling that comes up from time to time by clicking the New Resoluton menu bar in the PS Custom Resolutions screen. No clue on that.

To make matters worse, the INTERLACE option and interlaced modes in Powerstrip become unavailable whenever a DVI/FPD connection is enabled. So you apparently can't really "create" an interlaced mode directly for DVI. But rather, you have to create it for a VGA monitor, and then somehow apply it to the DVI display before PS or Windows get wise to what you're trying to do, and shut the whole effort down again.

There also seems to be some need to "clean the cobwebs" out of the Windows system registries and .ini files to get new modifications to the display modes to take hold. And I think this may be why Below 30 keeps suggesting deleting the .ini files and reinstalling the display drivers. Sometimes it seems to help if I delete the User Defined resolutions in the PS Custom Resolutions, before attempting to create new ones at the same vertical resolution. When or why that's necessary though, I haven't a clue.

Even though this program frustrates the hell out of me, I'm still slightly hopeful that eventually something will click and it'll all begin to make sense. I'm sure there are other important facets to how all this works that I'm still missing though.

FWIW, I strongly suspect there should be a way to get 720p to work on my TV, because like I was telling Below 30 before, when I take a 480p mode and change horizontal sync to 45Khz, and bump the vertical resolution up to 750-760 lines, the service mode on the TV indicates a "720P" signal is being recieved, even though it can't properly sync to it and the picture is unstable. I haven't identified the piece (or pieces) in the puzzle preventing me from getting standard 1280x720p HDTV modes in PS to be accepted by my system though. The 720p modes work with a VGA monitor. But as soon as I attempt to do anything with them for the FPD/DVI, the curtain comes down and the show's over.

I guess this points out the benefit to using a 2nd VGA monitor though to test whether it's even possibe for PS, your hardware and the monitor/display drivers you've chosen to do the modes/resolutions you want with any kind of display. When I have the clone/primary icons configured a certain way, I can get my VGA monitor to do both 720p and even genuine 1080i at least momentarily. But then when I exit out of Powerstrip, I frequently can't retrieve them. And they never seem to come up on the DVI/FPD monitor.

I also picked up a Geforce Ti4200 to try 720p on that, since it's a mode directly supported by those cards. Works with VGA fine and dandy, but with DVI/FPD.... nada, even with PS. To add insult to injury though it immediately accepted the Predefined HDTV standard 960x540p and 1920x540p modes without any argument on DVI.

Anyway, that's my great sob story, at the moment though I'm still stuck in Win98 land, with a 9000 and older Cat drivers. Which is why I feel that others in the HTPC forum probably can't be much help to me. My next move is probably to try a higher-end Radeon with more recent drivers and possibly a VGA->YPbPr transcoder just to see if 720p or 1080i will take with those. If I don't get anywhere with that, then I'll make do with 960x540 until I can afford to throw some money down the drain on a WinXP upgrade. :)

Welcome, dalec, BTW. ;) Nice to see some new faces here.