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16:9 Question

W

wpd7

Gawd
Joined
Sep 30, 2003
Messages
891
I am gong to build my first HTPC- let me know if you see any flaws here...

I am looking into an AIW9800Pro for MCE2005. Is this setup ok?

Also, I am using my old 240T running at 1920x1200. 16:9/10 form factor here- how is the AIW/MCE going to stretch the standard 4:3 TV image? Does it have smart stretching like 16:9 TVs where it gives you options of 4 way stretch, left/right stretch, or left/right stretch with less stretch at the middle and more on the sides?

Please LMK. Thanks!
 
even if I liked either of those choices, they won't work together. MCE requires a hardware encoder and the AIW are software based. So you will ahve to pick one or the other. Or ditch both. I prefer a SageTV and Hauppauge PVR-150MCE combo.

But If I can't talk you into that, drop the AIW. the image quality isn't the best and the software encoding will put more stress on your CPU. MCE is decent, just has a few things I don't like.
 
Ok, if I forget the AIW, can someone answer the second question for me?
 
not sure. Sorry. Somebody with MCE will come along. there are a couple of them around here.
 
I use Sage with a 4:3 TV but I have seen MCE run on a 16:9, it looks really good but I can't really answer your question about the TV stretching (although IMO 4:3 stretched to 16:9 has never looked good).
 
There is 3 zoom mode in MCE... normal 16:9/ 2:1 zoom/ 16:9->4:3 conversion.

You shouldn't have to use the zoom fuction with a proper 16:9 TV or projector. EDIT: It WILL put black bars on the sides of your screen if you watch a 4:3 program.

Hope this helps
 
To elaborate a little on the zoom modes...

There are 3 modes that MCE can be in (if you're connected HD to your TV)

Normal 16:9 --> This mode will put bars (adjustable from black to white) on the sides
Zoom mode 1 --> This mode will stretch the video horizontally so everything looks squished (and you loose just a little of the top and bottom information)
Zoom mode 2 --> This one zooms into the picture to fill the horizontal, but zoom vertical the same amount. It's geometrically balanced, but you loose about 1/4 of the top and bottom information.
 
wpd7 said:
I am gong to build my first HTPC- let me know if you see any flaws here...

I am looking into an AIW9800Pro for MCE2005. Is this setup ok?

Also, I am using my old 240T running at 1920x1200. 16:9/10 form factor here- how is the AIW/MCE going to stretch the standard 4:3 TV image? Does it have smart stretching like 16:9 TVs where it gives you options of 4 way stretch, left/right stretch, or left/right stretch with less stretch at the middle and more on the sides?

Please LMK. Thanks!
Click to expand...


As the other dudes said, the AIW is not supported in Windows Media Center Edition 2005. This doesn't mean that you can't get it to work. Do a Google search for "Kram Drivers", and use those to install in WMCE. Be warned, the PQ of the standard TV from the AIW will not be very good. In addition, as the Kram drivers are not official, you are on your own to get them to work.

If you use a regular Radeon card (9500 or better), you will find that the Catalyst drivers include resolutions for wide screen displays. You really don't need a special application like PowerStrip to set up a wide screen.

I just checked my display settings, and your 1920 x 1200 is one of the resolutions included in the latest drivers. In addition, the other typical wide screen resolutions are also included: 1280 x 720, 1280 x 768, 1360 x 768, 1920 x 1080 and a few others.

As to the standard analogue TV tuners, it is true that the analogue must have hardware MPEG encoding to work in WMCE 2005. In other words, WMCE will refuse to setup TV channels if it doesn't see a hardware MPEG encoder tuner.

Since you already have the wide screen, why don't you do HiDef TV tuner in addition to an analogue tuner? Again, the analogue must be an hardware encoder in order for WMCE to setup both the analogue channels and the digital HD channels.

Here's a trick: get an USB analogue tuner solely for setting up the analogue and digital channels in WMCE. Then, after the channels are setup, you can get rid of the USB analogue tuner, as it will no longer be necessary (if you don't need those channels).

A very good and cheap HD tuner is the Avermedia AverTVHD MCE A180 (less than 90$US). I have one AverTVHD running alongside an ATI HDTV Wonder and Hauppauge WinTV PVR 250MCE in my WMCE 2005 box.

The AverTVHD is an OEM product built solely for WMCE 2005.

I strongly advise that you do a proper analysis of your antenna requirements for picking up locally broadcast HD signals before buying a HD tuner. No use in getting a HD tuner if you can't pick up the signals.

It is true that, if you do go soley analogue channels, you will get to see standard TV in 4:3 aspect ratio, but you can stretch the images as described. However, viewing in 4:3 isn't so bad if you don't mind the black bars on the left and right sides. Depending on the PQ of the incoming video, Zooming ain't so bad either.
 
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