Pinnacle Showcenter 200 no sound on VOB playback? And XViD aspect ratio not right

[Rocklett]

Hi

I have recently purchased a new Pinnacle Showcenter 200 and being new to media streamers it took me a while to suss how to get media from my QNAP NAS as as well as from the Pinnacle software running on a my XP Pro Windows box but all is well now. I output the video side to a 32" Sony CRT TV via SCART.

I have updated the firmware to the new beta firmware now available and am generally very happy with the unit. However I have 2 issues remaining which I wonder if anyone can help with?

1. When playing back VOB files made from our JVC digital camcorder I get perfect picture in full (4:3) SD but no sound output. I'm guessing it is something I have done wrong, any ideas?


2. When playing back XVid from various downloaded sources the output to the TV is always full wide screen and fills the screen but the characters are too tall and no setting I can change seems to give perfect results. Worse I can set the TV to 16:9 and it plays back with the least 'stretching' on the various modes, but during playback the TV will suddenly reset itself back to 'Smart' or some other pseudo 'fill the screen with whatever the TV thinks best' mode so everything goes really tall again.

Both these problems have me beat so far, so I'd appreciate any feedback from other users.

[Broadsword]

With regards to number 2, it will be your TV settings that make it switch automaticaly, turn off your auto setting to 16:9 and that should stop. As long as your Divx are 16:9, then set the show center to 16:9 and toggle through the picture modes and you will find one that will work.

The mode that works for me best is fit to screen.

You can check the ratio of your divx's by dividing the pixels, the larger by the smaller and if its 1.85 or close then its going to be full 16:9 fill the screen widescreen, if its 2.35 then you will still get black bars top bottom, but either way there should not be any squashed or slim images on the screen.

[sennen]

Regarding the VOB sound problems, do you know what sound format is used by the JVC camera? If it is dolby digital AC3 then the sound will only go out on the digital output on the showcenter and will not be available on the analogue outputs (including the SCART).

So, if that is the case, there are a number of possible solutions:
a) Use an amplifier that can accept the digital input. I'd try this first to see if the showcenter is going to be able to recognise the sound stream on the existing VOBs. Hook it up to a mate's home theatre system.
b) Load the VOB files into a video converter and mix the sound down to stereo. The site doom9.net might help you find software.
c) Or you can purchase a dolby digital decoder add-on from Pinnacle which can be used to mix down the sound on the fly and send it to the analogue outputs. See this pinnacle forum article for installation help. The add-on only costs a few quid and is available from the Pinnacle online store.

I did the latter in order to playback some DVD conversions (DIVX+AC3 sound) on a stereo TV.

HTH

[jsoap]

Interestingly, on my SC200 with 21-81 firmware, the AC3 downmix hack http://your_show_centre_ip_address:2020/set_amx=on, keeps working, even after the unit is switched off.

Regarding the aspect ratio, the output format can be switched on using the "Red A" button on the remote when the video is playing.
Apologies, if you know this already, but I only found out recently.