How to set up PAL widescreen TV properly?

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From: Tiny Tim (tim_dodd_at_hotmail.com)
Date: 12/16/04 

Date: Thu, 16 Dec 2004 11:40:39 -0000

I'm having real trouble figuring out how to set up my new MCE2005 machine to
play nicely with my TV. I have a Sapphire Radeon 9600 Atlantis graphics card
with the latest Catalyst 4.12 drivers feeding a JVC 32" widescreen PAL TV
(about 5 years old) via s-video.

I have used the engineering menu for the TV to size and centre the picture
perfectly for the RGB signal from my satellite box and also for terrestrial
UHF broadcasts. The settings also suit the s-video output from my DV
camcorder. So I know the TV is set up nicely for all my signal sources.
Whether the source is full 16:9 widescreen or plain old 4:3 doesn't matter -
the display is perfect for both, with negligible overscan.
Colour/brightness/contrast are spot on too.

But I am having no luck getting my MCE output to get anywhere near filling
the screen. I've tried various resolutions from 720*576 through 800*600 and
1024*768. I had to use Powerstrip to dig out the 720*576 resolution.

If I set the TV to standard 4:3 format the MCE display occupies the middle
of the TV screen with 4" black borders on the left and right and 1" borders
at the top and bottom. I have found no way to get the MCE output to fill the
screen at least to the top and bottom edges. It looks like it's outputting a
14:9 image that needs stretching to fill the screen. In fact, if I use the
14:9 stretch mode on the TV then the picture does fill the screen from top
to bottom, with 2.5" bands on the left and right. But I surely shouldn't
have to falsely stretch the picture just because MCE isn't outputting the
right signal, should I?

The question is, how do I set up my MCE machine to send a "proper" signal to
my TV. I don't want to mess around with any settings on the TV as it is set
up just fine for everything else so I deduce it must be the MCE
configuration that is at fault. I've tried the resizing options that come
with the card drivers but they don't have anywhere near the scope to change
the picture enough. When I try the same with Powerstrip 3.55 then the
display either barely changes or instantly loses sync and goes all "fuzzy".

The TV is the only attached monitor but I do routinely access the MCE
machine using VNC or Remote Desktop. I don't know if that could have any
bearing on my difficulties but I doubt it.

Any ideas how I fix this?

Thanks,
Tim.

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