[mythtv-users] overscan problems with nvidia 8400 GS

Marc Tousignant drayson at net1plus.com
Sat Jul 18 03:20:54 UTC 2009



> -----Original Message-----
> From: mythtv-users-bounces at mythtv.org [mailto:mythtv-users-
> bounces at mythtv.org] On Behalf Of Tortise
> Sent: Friday, July 17, 2009 7:27 PM
> To: Discussion about mythtv
> Subject: Re: [mythtv-users] overscan problems with nvidia 8400 GS
> 
> Hi Dale
> I believe while NVIDIA may have a little to answer I believe your Sony
> TV has much more, as that is the real source of the problem.
> I understand any >= 8xxx NVIDIA card will give you the same result over
> component.  (I can confirm same happens with a 8500GT and
> 9400GT)
> Some of the old CRT's have some distinct advantages, better blacks,
> wider viewing angles etc so in many respects they remain better
> than LCD, the most recent possibly catching up!  (Some dinosaurs endure
> today....so they have a lot of experience to pull on!)
> I am sure Sony (or whoever you choose) will love to see one of your
> kids leave home early!
> What model of Sony TV do you have?
> Is it in warranty still?
> Do you have or is a pdf of the manual available?
> What do Sony say it should do over component?
> 
> 
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Dale Pontius" <DEPontius at edgehp.net>
> To: "Discussion about mythtv" <mythtv-users at mythtv.org>
> Sent: Saturday, July 18, 2009 11:10 AM
> Subject: Re: [mythtv-users] overscan problems with nvidia 8400 GS
> 
> 
> Brian Wood wrote:
> > On Monday 06 July 2009 07:52:25 Johnny wrote:
> >
> >> It is true that overscan is caused by the TV and not the video card,
> >> however, the problem of displaying stuff from a computer on a TV is
> >> shared by the TV and the video card. In the case of SD TVs, they
> were
> >> never intended to be hooked up to a computer and so it is
> unreasonable
> >> to hope for them to fix this issue. So in my opinion, if Nvidia
> >> provides a TV out option they do have some responsiblity to help me
> >> display stuff correctly on that TV (especially since overscan is
> >> standard in many many TVs).
> >
> > Another history lesson:
> >
> > Why is overscan standard?
> >
> > In the "Old Days" (defined as a block of time that ended the day you
> were
> > born) virtually all TV sets came from the factory overscanning to an
> extent.
> > The reason is because as the TV set aged, many things tended to
> change with
> > time: capacitors would get leaky, tubes would lose emission and other
> bad
> > things would happen. Unfortunately just about all these changes
> tended to
> > reduce voltages in the set, and result in under scanning.
> >
> <snip>
> >
> > </history lesson>
> >
> I don't buy it.
> 
> I don't doubt what you say, and I can agree that your history is
> perfectly valid.  I just don't believe it explains what I see on my
> setup.  You appear to have essentially "absolved" nVidia of any "guilt"
> with the 8000-series and overscan, by saying it's all a specmanship
> problem with NTSC and overscan from day-1.
> 
> I have one of those clunky old NTSC CRT sets. (A Sony, if it matters.)
> I know we're dinosaurs, but we've also got 2 kids in college.  Current
> plan says that the first kid out of the house gets a TV, and we get a
> new one.
> 
> This TV has never had serious visual problems with anything we've
> hooked
> up to it.  That includes VCR through RF, VCR through composite, VCR
> through svideo, DVD player through composite video, DVD player through
> svideo, and DVD player through component video, and several of the
> kids'
> friend's games consoles.  No visually annoying overscan problem, but
> you
> probably wouldn't expect to see any with that range of hardwared.
> 
> But I've also driven that same tv from a laptop with svideo out, again
> with no noticable visual/overscan problems.  (Incidentally, Radeon
> Mobile)  Oh, and my daughter's boyfriend's Mac also drove the TV just
> fine through composite.
> 
> Out of all this hardware, the ONLY thing driving the TV that has had
> ANY
> problem is the nVidia 8400GS in the Myth frontend I'm building - the
> machine that is essentially stalled for several reasons, this being one
> of them.  ("The picture's kind of blurry",  Well OF COURSE it's blurry
> when the video's being close-rescaled because I'm letting Myth resize
> the picture to compensate for overscan.)
> 
> So I don't deny what you've said - but I insist that what nVidia has
> done is way above and beyond what you've said - they've shipped a
> BROKEN
> product if you're one of those dinosaurs driving a CRT.
> 
> Ya know, the nVidia 6200 in the machine I'm using now is kind of a
> stinker - slow.  I might make sense to give up on the TV-out of the
> 8400GS and move it to this machine.  But what should I get instead?
> One
> really nice thing about the 8400GS I got was that it would drive
> component video, presumably to give me the best picture - until I had
> to
> compensate for overscan.
> 
> Dale Pontius
> _______________________________________________

I will comment on this, I have an Olivia 37 inch LCD, I have used it for
several years through 3 different frontends all with nvidia cards in them.
The first 2 cards were a GeForce 5700LE and a GeForce Go 7300 (AppleTV).
Both of these worked fine without having to adjust the gui placement.
The new frontend I just built has an nVidia ION. I had to adjust the gui
placement due to overscan issues. The TV has not changed and X logs say that
it is connecting using the same resolution and frequencies as my other
configs did, but the gui was not set right.

Marc



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