[buns]

none left

[Timh]

Hi Ad

You might be best popping over to www.avsforum.com powerstrip is used fairly frequent over there.

[buns]

I have been on there, im a bit of a serial lurker over there! The problem being no one has a plv30. I know at least one member uses one with a pc....... so i just wondered what his settings were.

To be honest, i dont really know how to decide which is best. At the moment i have no video playback available to me, so im hoping i will get inspiration as to how to set powerstrip when i do!

thanks

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[Timh]

Hi Buns

Maybe you should just set Powerstrip to 800x600 and with the refresh rate set to 60Hz.
Surely there must be several uses using a differant Sanyo model with an HTPC, the settings should be the same for other 800x600 sanyo use's.

Earlier this year I took my PC to my Brothers House, he has a PLV-30, we tested it in 800x600 but no powerstrip, I left the refresh rate alone as I didn't know any better then, we did have some vertical lines showing, but the projector probably just needed calibrating.

Be prepared for some Headaches

Good luck

[buns]

The reason i ask is because, to be honest, i dont know what im attempting to achieve with powerstrip! Am i wanting to set the resolution as high as i can and still have the projector accept it?

I have asked about this in hcpc forum, but as yet nothing! It seems to me that most powerstrip users just copy other peoples settings without actually knowing how it is all working.

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but soon I will have an HTPC...

I have just tried it briefly with some cheap components on a server I had laying around.

I am not certain why you would want something like powerstrip for the Sanyo PLV-30 as it is a box-standard 800x600 LCD panel which is also a standard computer monitor resolution provided by, dare I say, ALL SVGA drivers.

Powerstrip can be usefull if you have a native wide-screen LCD panel or a non-standard resolution as not all graphics card drivers have these options build in.

Maybe I have missed something Buns, but please explain a bit further what you are trying to do.

Regards,

JP

[buns]

Hello!

thanks for the reply!

I have now had fair chance to play about with powerstrip, and i can confirm that, in my case it is important. I use a 16:9 screen, hence my normal desktop overlaps off the screen area. Using powerstrip, you play with you front and back porch settings and can resize your desktop to a 16:9 format. I admit i havent had a chance to try this with a movie yet, that must wait until my immersive card comes along. But what i am hoping is that, set as it is, i will get 16:9 films will effectively play full screen over my desktop, 4:3 movies will be centred on the screen..... though im not certain yet. To be honest, having played with girder a bit, all those things are easily possible using it.

so far i think powerstip is a good touch since it has resized my desktop, it also lets you play with timings, so you could try and match the projector recommended timings, but what difference this makes i dont know. I will report back in a bit with my findings! Though nothing specific or else i get my NDA balls chewed off!

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Why do you project the PLV-30 to a 16:9 screen? You do realise that you are loosing out on a lot of the pixel's this projector is capable of? Have you considered trading the projector in for a cheaper true 16:9 model if that is what you want....

I still watch a lot of Sky Digital and play the Xbox which are all in 4:3 format. Personally I prefer to have a larger 4:3 picture and black bars with widescreen material (which you will get anyway considering the large amount of different aspect ratio's). Than telling the projector to not use the top and bottom rows of pixels in order to simulate 16:9 and have the 4:3 material even small in the middle with black bars to the sides.....

I know everyone has got their own preferences and good for them, but I am curious as to why you'd want a 16:9 screen with a 4:3 projector.

Cheers,

Jean-Paul

[buns]

It is very simple! I bought a projector at the time when the only 16:9 panel available was the sony at £3500, somewhat beyond my limit!

I am aware i lose a fair chunk of the pixels, but i would not be willing to trade the projector in just because of this. The picture i achieve is really very good up until now simply using composite dvd, i have difficulty believing that the panny can do any better.

I dont watch 4:3 material in ny way, hnce a 16:9 screen was the only logical course to take. To sell my sanyo i cant imagine getting even £1000, so the panny would still require more and im not willing to trade sideways like that. I am happy with what i have, the hcpc will almost certainly make things alot better. When I can afford a higher end projector i will go there!

I think there will be alot of people using 4:3 projectors with 19:9 screens..... the cheap 16:9 projectors are not about for long (less than a year), until then, 4:3 was the only budget route. The only reason it now seems such a strange route is because the cheap projectors of late have brought the technology to the masses..... anyhow, im wandering!

Basically i saw the sony 16:9 last year and compared to the sanyo with iscan, the results were to my eyes almost identical. I cannot imagine a cheap 16:9 pj to better that, hence there is every possibility i might choose the same method again even now!

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[Jim_E]

buns,

How did your experimenting go? I've just got a new pc and am going to try it with my Sanyo as soon as I liberate my long VGA cable from DHL. Do you have any advice on the best Powerstrip settings? I have a Radeon 9700 graphics card - I'd like to get a VGA to component adaptor for it but these only seem to be available in the US.

Jimmy

[buns]

Hi Jim! Welcome to the forums!

Experimenting went very well thanks! I now have a nic stable picture which is much superior to my dvd player on its own.

Why do you want a vga to component adaptor??? I just am using vga to vga.

What screen format are you using?

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[Jim_E]

buns,

I use a 4:3 Da-Lite matt white screen with the 16:9 mode on the pj. I was interested in the VGA to component adaptor so that I could still use the 16:9 mode - which I don't think is possible using the VGA connection.

However I suppose I can just set DVD software to output a 4:3 picture, I doubt I'll notice any difference in picture quality.

What settings do you have powerstrip on?

Jimmy

[Smurfin]

Jim,

go here: http://www.nec.co.uk

In the projectors section it shows a VGA to component adapter, if you phone NEC they can give you the name of a dealer who sells them. Mines on order for my DLP projector, mind you they arent cheap, £65 inc delivery.

Why do you want one??

[buns]

Jim,

I dont use an internal dvd solution, so im making assumptions and may be wrong here! But, why worry about using the sanyo 16:9 mode? All you need do is put it to computer mode and let the software dvd do the anamorphic squeeze or whatever.

I am using a 16:9 screen.....i am running at 800x450. Howver, as may well already have been stated here......you really neednt look beyond the native resolution of 800x600 since there is nothing to be gained.

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[karkus30]

This is interesting stuff, I have a PLV30 and a DVD player, but all this talk of powerstrips is fascinating, its like the twilight zone.

Take my hat off to anyone brave enough to fiddle around with PCs and multiple sets of program functions, what is the benefit? is the HTPC solution better than a DVD player? or is it just the satisfaction of getting something like this to work? Is it cutting edge?

[Smurfin]

karkus HCPCs are generally considered to provide stunning image quality compared to a normal standalone DVD player.

The general picture quality scale is like this (from worst to best):

DVD player via composite
DVD player via S-video
DVD player via component
DVD player via component (progressive scan)
HCPCs.

HCPCs are generally better because they take over scaling duties, and they provide 1:1 pixel mapping for a perfect video transfer.

Thats about as much as I know, I've been asking newbie questions on the HCPC forum, building myself up to go and get all the bits...........I sense a future of headaches and PC frustration

[karkus30]

Originally posted by Smurfin


Thats about as much as I know, I've been asking newbie questions on the HCPC forum, building myself up to go and get all the bits...........I sense a future of headaches and PC frustration

I use a prog scan player so not far off the best image I suppose, but there must be endless possibilities using a PC, I can only imagine how many parameters to setup.

Would take the PC down to your HC setup or do you leave it remote? What about all the controls like FF, skip etc, these are all handy on a DVD remote, how do yo get over that?

[buns]

There are different ways to do hcpc, of differing difficulty!

The pc should be unquestionably superior to the prog scan stand alone (with a few possible exclusions). With the dvd player you are limited in your outputs to one resolution, but with hcpc you can do most anything so that you can optimise with your display.

back to the 2 routes (maybe there are more?)

1. a one box solution. You have a pc with your dvdrom, sound, graphics....everything. You use a software dvd player. I havent done this, but if you judge upon the multitude of posts, this route requires a lot of fiddling and is somewhat more difficult to control.

2. hcpc acts as scaler/deinterlacer only. This is what i do. I have a special capture card which i use to capture signals from my dvd player (and vcr and LD and anything else you want!). Doing it this way saves you buying sound cards, software dvd players can be forgotten...... basically you set it up and forget about it. All you have to do is press play on your external source and it fairly much does eeything else itself. If you go as far as using an sdi player, then the picture is supposed to exceed even that of solution 1!! If you want info on sdi stuff.....jeff would be the guy to ask and possibly couch potato in a bout a week when he gets his!

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[Smurfin]

buns, that raises an interesting option for me. Retain my existing DVD player and use the PC as a scaler.

So what kit would I need to do this?

Would this do it? :-

800mhz processor
Radeon gfx card (64mb?)
20 gb h/drive
slimline case & whisper quiet CPU.

What else would I need?

How do you connect it all up i.e DVD player to PC?

[Jim_E]

I was looking at the VGA to component adaptor so that I could still output an anamorphically squeezed picture at full resolution rather than a reduced resolution picture with black bars at the top and bottom.

I was under the impression that it was prefferable to let the pj use its 16:9 mode on an anamorphic signal than send a 4:3 signal to it with black bars in place. To be honest though I've never compared the results of both of these side by side and suspect that there would be little (or no) difference.

One thing I was thinking about was sending the anamorphic picture to the pj through the VGA input and using an anamorphic lense to 'unsqueeze' it. Obviously those panamorph things are expensive but I remember reading a thread about home made ones. I think this would be difficult to accomplish but it's always nice to have a project on the go

I am also interested in looking into the use of a pc as a scaller as well. For the moment I am content to use my internal DVD drive for DVD's but there's always Sky to think about. I'd welcome any advice as to a good capture card to use as I also want to start recording TV programs digitally to my HD and DIVX'ing them onto CD. I was hoping I could get two 45 min eps of TV on a CD at a reasonable quality - I'm running out of storage room for vhs!

buns, do you have any problems with the video being delayed behind your audio when scalling with the pc?

[buns]

Smurfin:

i am using a fairly simple setup so far. I have a powered by radeon 7500, celeron 1.2, asus mobo, 256Mb ram, 20G hard drive. I am using a dabs case since im waiting for a dign one to arrive. I dont know what difference a better power supply will use.

Now, the capture part is a bit tricky! There are loads of rumours that the new breed of capture card will be far more capable than the last, but i dont kno about these since dont use them! Try the hcpc forum for more info! I use the new immersive holo3dgraph card...... it is quite pricey $895 so you may not wish to go that far. Unfortunately, I am still constrained by an NDA hence cannot comment about the performance. Hopefully I will be able to do so soon.

The handy thing about this is no nonsense with software dvd, passing sound through.....you dont even need a sound card. Literally, you need add only a capture card to a bare bones system.

I just am connecting via s-video lead at the moment, until i get around to an sdi player!


Jim:

Using the vga, you dont need to worry about the projectors 16:9 mode. The anamorphic squeezing will be done by the pc software, hence the projector does not need worry about it!

As far as i know, to send an anamorphic picture to the projecter via the vga, you would need to cheat the software by telling it the source was non-anamorphic when in fact thats not the case. Personally i would advise you simply to let the software do the anamorphic bit and not worry about lenses or adaptors...... it will be much easier! If nothing else, try it my way, you wont loose anything, if it doesnt work out, then you can buy the adaptor safe in the knowledge that you havent wasted cash!

Dont ask me about recording stuff! Im a bit of a purist (if you can say that about a pc user! ). I like to keep my pc having only one pupose, hence i havent done anything of this sort!

Audio delay..... i have read about this and i am aware that it can be an issue. But i dont hear or see it, i guess it is down to the individual.

As soon as this NDA is finished, i can talk more freely!

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[Jim_E]

Well, finally managed to get my long VGA cable for my projector from DHL (their Canning Town depot is nice in itself but the surrounding industrial estate is a bit like something out of a zombie film!)

Anyway, I've tried the pc into my Sanyo PLV30 and haven't been too impressed to be honest. I have Power DVD running at 800x600 resolution and have my 9700 card set to output the same to my pj.

I tried Pearl Harbour earlier and while the picture looked detailed it also looked a bit 'computerish' for want of a better term. There was also tearing of the image on fast motion. I'm sure that a HTPC is supposed to look better than this but I'm at a loss as to exactly what to do to improve things - does anyone have any ideas?

[buns]

What drivers are you using with the radeon? What software dvd player are you using? Have you got anyother displays or anything running of the radeon?

I am fairly new to hcpc and have never used a software dvd. I currently get some progscan artifacts like you say, but they are fairly minor and not always present. The crux of hcpc is you need to fiddle with it, read up, work out what drivers are correct...... there are a multitude of things! If you search through our pc forum and the one at www.avsforum.com it is unlikely you will be unable to find an answer, if you need more help, just ask and someone will help if they can!

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[jason t]

did you have it set force to weave or bob??
it might have been you had it set wrong i have it set to weave and the only time i get tearing is when i am watching trailers at the begining of a film!! which i think is down to having the setting on weave (i.e trailers are in video mode i think)

jason

[buns]

Originally posted by jason t
did you have it set force to weave or bob??

Now im intrigued, what are those settings? A dvd player or ati setting?

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[Jim_E]

I did a bit of fiddling around with the set up last night and did get far better results.

I am using Power DVD as my software DVD player and the drivers that came with my card (not sure exactly what they are.) The probelm I was encountering with the poor looking picture was down to trying to output a signal to both my monitor and my projector at the same time.

I altered the settings to just send a signal to the pj and things were massively improved. I had also forced the weave setting. The picture looked superb, better than I had been getting from my Skyworth 1050p player - with one exception - there was still some tearing of the image. It was relatively minor but sometimes it did look as if the top of the image and the bottom of the image were not fully joined together. It would be enough to stop me watching DVD's in this way.

I was using the battle sequence from the region 1 Pearl Harbour directors cut to test. It really did look and sound great apart from the tearing. I will have to devote some time to further messing around I think. For the record I had the image set at 800x600 with the refresh rate at 75hz. The projector correclt recognised this as what it calls in the manual SVGA3.

I think the bob and weave settings are about methods of de-interlacing to get the prog scan image. Not sure any more details than this except that I have read that weave is best for film but not very good for video. I don't think this setting was the main thing that improved the picture - it was more the fact that I was no longer trying to drive two displays.

[buns]

Try going to the ati site and downloading the latest drivers. I had a significant improvement on moving from the supplied drivers to catalyst drivers. I dont know which flavour suit your card best though.

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[jason t]

i think all software dvd players for the pc have the bob/ weave
setting afaik the bob is for video based material and the weave setting is for film based stuff..
when using powerdvd did you have hardware acc on or off??
when i disabled this on my pc i got a smoother image, also play around with the refresh rate i think people use 72hz and 75hz one is used for pal and the other for ntsc cant remember which way around sorry

jason