How you define your TV as a monitor in MCE 2005

Hi all,

I have just put together an MCE 2005 PC and I am trying to connect it to my LCD TV via component output that is supplied by the graphics card. My graphics card is a ASUS ATI Radeon X600 HDTV compatible card, and I have installed the latest CATALYST drivers from ATI.

However, I cannot resolve how to tell to the operating system that I have a TV monitor connected to my graphics card. The CATALYST drivers alow me to select component connection (YpBrR) but the result, at 1280*720 resolution, is disastrous.

I figure I am doing something really wrong, since my SYSTEM->HARDWARE parameters display I have connected a regular VGA monitor.

Does anyone have any experience how to proceed in correctly setting up my system for connection it to an LCD TV via component output/input?

Thanks,

[AV Junky]

Sounds like a driver problem to me mate. I recently installed new drivers for my ATi card, via Windows Update. Completely kna****ed my graphics output - was locked in VGA mode, no matter how many times I changed it to native for my screen. Fixed by uninstalling the new drivers, then allowing Windows to re-install it's default drivers when re-started.

You would think that MS would put the MCE-compatible drivers on the WU site, when the operating system has been identified as MCE, wouldn't you?!

[dejongj]

It's a shame that you are not a bit more descriptive when saying it is disatrous....

I don't know the drivers you are using...But it might be that your graphics card is down/up scaling a different desktop resolution to fit within a 720p output...This could be nasty....

Don't forget that there is also a setting within MCE (Settings, TV I think) where you can state what you have got....

Or, depending on how nasty the picture is...Is the TV set to accept the correct input! Some TV's re-use the composite input as part of the component input and when the setting is not correct you can get a silly picture, and depending on how the sync is handled it is stable or not...

Lots of possibilities but can only narrow it down when you give a better description...

Cheers,

Well I have managed to resolve the problem after all. For lack of a microsoft .NET installation in my PC I opted for installing the ATI Catalyst drivers without the Catalyst Control Center. After installing Microsoft .NET, and downloading and installing the ATI drivers with Catalyst Control Center, I was able to run the configuration wizard for my monitor type which is only included in this version.

At a selected 1280X720 (720i) resolution there is some annoying overscan, but you can also select a modified 720i resolution witch almost fills the screen. None of the two options however is the best solution. Trying to configure for 1080i results in proper displaying, filling all the screen with no over or under scan, but there is substantial flickering since the refresh rate is set to 30HZ and the screen is really hard to read, so this is also not an option.

Additionally, some of my favorite programs for video editing like ULEAD Vision Studio 9.0 refuse to run in any resolution less than 1024X768. Given that 720i resolution is maximum 720 vertical lines the program reports that the monitor resolution is not adequate for displaying video.

It seems that my HTPC project is going in vain, since the primary reason for setting it up was for being able to use Video editing software like ULEAD Vision Studio. I tried to experiment with PowerStrip for changing the screen resolution but I have no lack so far.