Getting AVI playback to TV (ATI X700, S-Video)

[cyberkost]

Please help, I've spent quite a bit of time on this and can not find a decent solution.

The problem:
I have ATI X700 card with S-VIDEO out connected to S-VIDEO in on TV (via an S-VIDEO cable, obviously). I want a setup that would allow a computer illiterate person with a few easy clicks to get AVI playback going on the *TV* screen, preferrably in such a way that LCD settings are unaffected. Ideally, I'd like some sort of "run_windows_media_player_with_this_movie_on_my_TV_and_dont_mess_my_LCD_setting" script. The Catalyst thing that came with the video card (boy, is it ugly!) seems to be rather useless, perhaps WinXP can hadle this on its own?

Any help appreciated. Thanks beforehand!

 

[Steelski]

Its called Theatre mode.
In CCC( i think as i use ATI Tray tools, highly recomended) there is a setting that i use called this and it works fine for me. it can be enabled all the time and is only activated when the computer detects a video file being played. i leave the TV in clone mode which does not affect the LCD/CRT at all.

 

[cyberkost]

Originally posted by: Steelski
Its called Theatre mode.
In CCC( i think as i use ATI Tray tools, highly recomended) there is a setting that i use called this and it works fine for me. it can be enabled all the time and is only activated when the computer detects a video file being played. i leave the TV in clone mode which does not affect the LCD/CRT at all.

Thanks, I'll try the Tray Tools. However, I'm not sure about clone mode -- does enabling it not imply that LCD and TV are set to the same resolution? That would be a pity, b/c the LCD is 1680x1050 and TV is 800x600 (I think).

 

[Auric]

No, the LCD does not have to match the TV's resolution. The TV will not be made to match any higher than 1024x768 so the desktop on it will scroll -which does not matter when Theater Mode is used since it will fill the screen. If there is no reason to use a driver later than 5.2 then don't since afterwards a resolution defect was introduced which has still not been corrected as of 6.5 (outputs 720x480 instead of 640x480 and thus stretches the image vertically). Forced cropping was also added as of 5.11. ATI's video quality is a mess.

 

[cyberkost]

Thanks, Auric. I guess I don't need to panic (though I'm moving soon and need this thing set up before I do -- this is for the inlaws). I'll set aside a time and try to implement your and Steelski suggestions. I'll post my experiences afterwards.

 

[cyberkost]

Here's the solution that is less than perfect, but I consider workable (does not involve messing with Catalyst, Hydravision, etc.):
1) right-click on the desktop ->Properties->Settings
2) select display 2 (by clicking on it or selecting "2. Default Monitor on YOURATIVIDEOCARD (Secondary)" from the drop-down "Display" menu
3) Check "Extend my Windows desktop onto this monitor" check-box. Leave "Use this device as the primary monitor" unchecked (or you risk having your computer and mouse be in one room and all of your windows on TV in another room)
4) slide the "Screen resolution" slider to 800x600 (or whatever is appropriate for your TV
5) Clik "Ok" at the bottom
--- the above finishes the setup, now how to use it ---------------
6) start a movie, e.g. using Windows Media Player (Wimp)
7) drag'n'drop Wimp window outside of visible desktop, so that you don't see it anymore (it will be sitting on your "secondary display = TV)
8) while Wimp window is still active/current press Alt-Enter to maximize it and run to the TV room to catch the movie

If you have stop/play/pause/volume controls on the keyboard -- those should still work. When the movie is over just close Wimp (Alt-F4) and you'll be back to your normal windows desktop on your LCD (or whatever).

 

[Auric]

teh noes! Do not enable Extended... simply toggle on the TV and leave it as a Clone of the FPD (Primary). Enable Overlay Theater Mode (Full Screen Video) and the video can play on the FPD in a Window while full sized on the TV (Windows 2000 was able to do so while minimized but XP lost that -natch!). Also set the aspect (same as source) and the appropriate device aspect (4:3 or 16:9). No more fiddling will then be necessary. Simply run the movie -perhaps from desktop shortcuts for the computar illiterate.

 

[cyberkost]

Where do I "Enable Overlay Theater Mode (Full Screen Video)"? I don't see sush an option in Catalyst.

 

[cyberkost]

Ok, I've installed ATI Tools (I was hoping to avoid having extra stuff in the tray). Then I did the following:
1) clicked TV "on" in the "Displays" tab
2) went to "Theater Mode" tab and set these:
"In Clone Mode" = Theater (Full screen Video)
"In Extended Display" = Standard (extended display is disabled anyway)
"Set video aspect ratio to" = Same as source video
"Display device aspect ratio" = 4:3 Stadard TV

With these settings the picture on TV is shrunk vertically (and it does not seem to be solvable by playing with any settings ATI Tools lets one play with) ... Any insight into this?

What's worse, now that I have played with ATI Tools and uninstalled them, the image on the TV is still shrunk vertically. Arghh!

 

[cyberkost]

Went back to the original drivers (v9.0) that did not have the vertical shrinkage problem -- the problem is still here. Downloaded CCC 5.2 (with drivers v8.7) -- did not fix the problem either. Now I wonder what exactly got screwed. Any ideas?

 

[Auric]

I'm not familiar with CCC so it's just as well you installed ATT

ATT does not have to run in the tray; afterall any control panel is simply toggling registry entries so may be closed after doing so.

I suggest starting over by running aticimun.exe (ATI Software Uninstaller Utility) and running the Catalyst 5.2 driver setup only (either download it or extract the CCC 5.2 package and run setup from the driver subfolder). Repeat what you did with ATT which was correct.

I don't know of any reason the TV image should be shrunk vertically. If there are black bars surrounding the image then adjustments can be made from the ATT Display Settings. Also be sure to select the correct TV Format (NTSC-M for North America).

Confirm the correct aspect ratio with a 4:3 test pattern. Ideally, resize to 640x480 in an image editor since that is ultimately what the output is (and thus avoids any resizing by the video card). Open the image in a player such as Media Player Classic so as to utilize Overlay Theater Mode. Now the squares and circles can be checked for accuracy (no need to break out an actual measuring tape but just hold a piece of paper up to the TV and mark the height vs width).

 

[cyberkost]

Uf-f, the thing with vertical shrinking turned out to be a button on the TV remote that got pressed for no reason (it took me about 3 hours of this and that to figure it out). Other than this, I went to the original drivers that came with the videocard (dated back to 2004), installed ATT, followed instructions above and got the clone-Theater mode working the way it should. Thanks, Auric.