Re: Bad quality in Live and Recorded TV...

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CPU Specs:

HP Pavillion M7750N
Athlon X2 5000+
2Gb RAM
400 Gb SATA Hd
nVidia 6150 LE onboard graphics (waiting for 8600 series DX10 cards for
upgrade)
Windows Vista Home Premium
Dual tuner digital and analog PVR card

I'm using a VGA connector from the PC to the monitor because that's whats
currently available. Once the NVidia 8600 Ultra is released I'll be stepping
it up to a DVI connection.

I have no idea what DVD decoder I'm using. Whatever the default is for Vista
Media Center.

Please keep in mind that I'm not using a TV with this at all. I got the
24"monitor so that I wouldn't need a TV in my bedroom. I just checked the
resolution compatibility various settings and it appears this monitor,
despite being an LCD, can do non-native resolutions quite ably. Is there any
way at all to get MC to dynamically adjust the output resolution?

"Dana Cline - MVP" wrote:

No, I think the resolution is constant and the content is scaled to fit. But
that brings up further questions...what display adapter board are you using,
and what kind of connector? If you switch from full-screen to windowed, how
does the playback look at various sizes of window?

It sounds like in the case of the xBox that your TV is doing the upscaling
and it may have a better algorithm. Which dvd decoder are you using?

Dana Cline - MCE MVP

"PhillyTG" <PhillyTG@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:668E6092-6743-4AA2-B7A1-E2C76D7A45D5@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Thanks for the reply.

I was assuming that Media Center would adjust the resolution of my display
to match the content being sent to it. i.e.; if I recorded a show in
standard
def, set the output res to 640 x 480, if the recording is in HD then the
output would change to 720p or 1080i.

Is this an unrealistic expectation? I honestly can't see how Media Center
is
of any value whatsoever without this capability. Otherwise the media
capabilities are useless on a monitor. My monitor is native at 1920 x 1200
but I played an Xbox 360 though it at every possible resolution (480i,
480p,
720p, 1080i, 1080p) and it looked perfect at every single setting (I have
the
1 to 1 pixel mapping turned on).

I'll repeat, the example video of people playing pool looks amazing at
full
screed res, so it is possible. Its just that everything else looks
terrible.

"Dana Cline - MVP" wrote:

I'm not quite sure what you're trying to do here...It sounds like Media
Center is stretching the content to fit the screen, which is what it
should
do. I assume you _don't_ want a standard TV signal to be shown in the
middle
720x480 pixels, right? So something has to scale the picture to fit the
screen, and that's generally gonna be the MPEG decoder (I assume). Your
other alternative is to let the TV scale the picture, but they you'd have
to
change your computer's resolution to something smaller.

Dana Cline - MCE MVP

"PhillyTG" <PhillyTG@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:18FEC43C-CA38-4592-8274-0A5642725B59@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
I am also experiencing complete and total garbage video quality with my
new
Vista MC system and my 24" Gateway LCD.

The "pool players" video looks outstanding, but anything else, even
DVDs
are
nothing but pixelated crap. I dropped over a grand on the PC and $680
on
the
monitor so that I could use it as a PC and home theater setup in my
bedroom,
but it appears as though I've been ripped off by promises that this
system
simply can't keep. It appears as though MC leaves the resolution of the
monitor at 1920 x 1200 regardless of the content, then simply tries to
stretch the picture to that res. How do you get Vista MC to properly
adjust
the resolution to fit the content being played? Without that ability,
this
thing's PVR and MC capabilities are worthless.






.

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