[nygiants]

Just received the KD transcoder and hooked it all up. After painless hours and frustration, I'm finally able to get a crystal clear desktop on my Sony 57" (used Powerstrip). It's great but there are a few issues I'm unsure about.


1. When I play a DVD, it runs and I hear sound but I see nothing. This goes for simple internet videos also. Weird.

2. I assume most games reset the resolution when they are loaded. I'm running 856 by 480 for the desktop so when I load a game the screen goes blank and I get nothing. Is there away around this? I tried using a standard resolution that the game can handle but I can't seem to find timings for Powerstrip that my TV likes. All I see is moving lines and color when I change it to a native resolution.


What are you guys doing out there to deal with these issues?


I've gotten this far suprisingly but an HTPC means nothing if I can't watch dvd's or play games


Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[nygiants]

anybody have any advice on this. I'd like to get this fixed before I throw the HTPC out the window and buy an XBox. Thanks.

 

[jvincent]

Check out nintari's and tigerdave's games pages for pointers on how to get games going.


As far as DVD playback goes what video card are you using, which DVD player S/W, and what resolution are you trying to run at?

 

[nygiants]

I'm pretty new at this so that's why I may not be the best at explaining some things but here goes.


I'm actually running this from my laptop so it's an ATI Radeon 9000 mobility card. I know laptops have limitations and don't make the best HTPC's but it's my only option at this time and it seems to be working ok.


I've tried a few dvd players...Simplevideo, Windvd, Interactive, Win Media player and they all do the same thing.


The resolution I'm running was set using Powerstrip at 856 by 480. That seems to be the optimal resolution for my HDTV. I've been having a little trouble getting the other resolutions to work correctly.


I would also like to have the laptop at it's native resolution 1400x1020 and the HDTV at 856 by 480 but can't find a way to separate the two. If I have the HDTV screen working my laptop goes blank and vice versa. That's another story.


I'll check out those game pages. Thanks for the info.

 

[jvincent]

Most of the DVD players that use the overlay (which is a function of the graphics card) need to send their output to the primary display which may or may not be switchable from the laptop panel to the VGA output.


If DVDs play correctly on the laptop by itself but not over VGA that may be the problem.

 

[nygiants]

that doesn't sound to promising to me jvincent. dvd's do play on the laptop but not on the HDTV so what you say makes sense.


Do you know if there is any way around this or am I screwed? I won't be able to play dvd's or view any video? This doesn't sound like it would be just a laptop problem. Wouldn't this happen with desktops also. Maybe I can mess around with the laptop display and possibly turn it off so the pc only sees the HDTV as the display. Just guessing.

 

[jvincent]

There are a couple of possible solutions.


One is to try and get the VGA to be the "primary" monitor somehow. Fiddling around in the ATI control panel may get you there.


Some of the DVD players support using the VMR (or desktop) renderer as opposed to the overlay. Media player should let you do this under Options -> Performance -> Advanced disable overlay and you should be OK. Note that your performance will suffer.