numpty trouble with settings on ATI Catalyst HD Card & my HD TV-please explain it

Have toshiba HD TV (42XV555DB)

Now have an Asus Radeon AH4650 AGP Card (HDMI HDCP etc)
ASUS - Graphics Cards- ASUS AH4650/DI/1GD2

It sort of works, but I think I'm making a cocktail of woe by not entirely understanding it & prob going about it all in the wrong sequence.

It all starts with the difference between clone desktop & extended, the monitor having one set of settings (it's an old shaped portrait one rather than widescreen 1280x1024 60MHz) , the TV another (manual says 1920x1080p at 75mhz), how these relate to the 1080p part & what controls what. I see different figures again using the windows display manager (Win XP home), which gives me an option Catalyst doesn't of 2048x1536 pixels.

What I want to do are three things.

1 This is my primary machine & most of the time, I write, surf & watch youtube. It's also plugged into the AV & very good sound it makes too.

2 WE have no DVD player-so what I wanted was come the evening for the GF & myself to able to watch DVDs ( & blue rays & HD TV & record it. but proof on concept comes 1st). This is sort of does, but it's very tricky for me to interpret what resolution & refresh rate equates proper HD.
Here's the telly's manual-p10
http://www.toshiba-om.net/PDF/Englis...52-English.pdf
No matter what I do the picture does not fill the TV screen unless I chose PC Wide.

Then I fiddled with the window display manager & found an even bigger resolution. And doubtless then chanmged something else in catalyst becuase then the telly dumped the idea it was a PC connection & gave all the picture setting options (colour, cinema, etc) associated with a proper AV signal. But it's doesn't fill the screen

3 I have quite a few dog vids on the PC. It would be useful to see them on the telly. This works fine with clone (still no fill screen) & the ever realiable VLC player. However, go into extended desktop & drag the playing VLC window across & it all grinds to a stutering halt & virtually crashes. WTF??

S'got to be me. What settings should I be using in catalyst & why won't the blasted thing do it full size? It was my understanding you got it all into the right shape at the signal end & THEN used the monitors, whatever other kit further down the chain to modify it. But should I be fiddling with windows own display manager or Ati's Catalyst Centre?

And these PC vids vs extended desktop?

I don't care if I need 2 different profiles or whatever, just so long as it all works at the best it can. Push comes to shove I could live without the vids on the network, but seeing as I'm so close it must surely just be my ignorance & a setting or two yes??

Cheers everyone. You know I just thought, got the telly, got the card, got the right HDMI cable-surely it'll just auto-detect & wham away we go for whatever DVD on HD for 1st time ever. No fuss. But no, it's as much of a arse as trying to configure the signal I tried into the S-Video input, which I (obv) never sussed. Still-got audio through the telly & one lead less now.

seeing as the bottom half of the UK is attempting to become the 2nd Lake District today why not stay indoors & have a wee cogitate about this one?!

If I understand correctly...

You want to extend the desktop as your TV is a different resolution to your monitor. The res for the TV should be 1920 x 1080p with a refresh of a max of 75mhz.

If you drag VLC from the PC monitor to the TV when it's playing it will crash or the image on the player will disappear. This is a VLC bug but not a big problem - simply don't press play until it's on the TV screen, then press F11 to make it full screen and CTRL H to hide the controls.

Originally Posted by Veggie Dave

If I understand correctly...

You want to extend the desktop as your TV is a different resolution to your monitor. The res for the TV should be 1920 x 1080p with a refresh of a max of 75mhz.
.

ah-knew I should have tried it with windows media player as well!

Yes, correct. Thing is that 1920 x1080p @75Mhz doesn't seem to pop up in Catalyst.

Thank for popping in Dave.

Originally Posted by Editor

ah-knew I should have tried it with windows media player as well!

I use VLC on my TV and it works perfectly, you just have to remember to hit play once the player is on the TV not the monitor. Oh, and to hit F11 then CTRL H to make it full-screen.

Thing is that 1920 x1080p @75Mhz doesn't seem to pop up in Catalyst.

If you have 1920 x 1080 then choose the highest Mhz that's not higher than 75 (I'm guessing you have 50 or 60 only) and see which looks best on your TV.

Have you got it sorted?

Originally Posted by Veggie Dave

Have you got it sorted?

not by any rigorous approach thank you. Just played around with the settings, found the 1080p one @ 60 & it's nearly there-not quite full soze of the TV. Extended Desktop is essential! The fonts on my monitor OTOH are now fuzzy.

Cheers.

Originally Posted by Editor

not by any rigorous approach thank you. Just played around with the settings, found the 1080p one @ 60 & it's nearly there-not quite full soze of the TV.

Check what the AV channel settings on the TV are for that channel - it could be the TV is set to 'auto' or '14:6' or some other ratio that's partly the problem. Make sure it's set to 16:9. Don't forget on digi TVs each input has its own settings so just because AV1 has certain settings, they won't automatically transfer to AV2, HDMI1 etc.

The fonts on my monitor OTOH are now fuzzy.

Hmm, that I have no idea about.

update-the picture size is a matter of scaling by the card. Find the option, move the slider to zero. Set telly to exact scan-bingo.

BUT I still can't find where to set the blasted catalyst software to max HDTV 1080p. I said that I had earlier-I canna find it at all now. Vsn 12.4 updated yesterday.

Is there some kind of a test one can quickly do to see what's it pumping out, rather than what it says it is as well please?


Veggie old bean-another Q right up your street. Calibrating your TV. Is the THX optimiser embedded in the setup screen of most Disney DVDs & some blue speccs off ebay good enough for the non critical or is it something a bit more rigorous? Some people say good enough for casuals, others hate anything THX ever did & think it's tosh.

Cheers all. Final straight on this one surely by now?!

The THX cards you find on every THX disc (Alien for example) are more than adequate for a home cinema set-up. But your player/PC must be connected at the highest res possible. I've found the test cards are useless when a standard DVD player is attached via scart - the res/quality simply isn't good enough.

A couple of tips:
Let your TV warm up before you do anything.

Set up your TV in the lighting conditions you normally watch TV. When it comes to watching films, the lower the light in the room, the better.

Backlight - 'the brighter the better' is not how to set it.

Sharpness - so many people want their films to look like computer games and turn everything on full. Having sharpness on full not only makes films shot on film look wrong, the increase in blocky film grain can ruin your watching experience.

The amount of people who say the latest BD they're just bought looks shit because it's all blocky/grainy are idiots who don't understand film has grain and usually have their TV badly set up, especially where the sharpness is concerned. The THX cards have a sharpness test card, too, to help you avoid this.

Oh yeah, there's also optimum viewing distances for HDTVs, too.
Viewing Distance Calculator

superb chap. Thank you.

Right-just the catalyst settings to go. Anyone please?