AVerTV DVB-T does not display on TV

[bvw1705]

I am running bare bones AMD 2000 XP at 1.7 GHz, Gigabyte Radeon 64 Mb TV out and AVerTV DVB-T card under WINDOWS XP PRO O/S.

Original instalation CD's only used for the installation for the AGP Radeon and TV card.

Digital TV installed O.K. scaned the channels and works fine on the computer monitor. When the TV is configured as clone display I get all the computer graphics O.K even the frame or window of the AVerTV is displayed on TV but nothing inside the ie I can see Bert Newton on my computer monitor but the TV diplays only the outside box (Window) with purple inside. If I select Digital Radio say ABC the still picture of some water scene is displayed in both -Primary Monitor and TV - Clone.

Now if I configure the TV as extended desk top, I can drag the TV image across from Primary Monitor to TV and Bert Newton or whatevever TV program is now working almost fine on TV. I have to move a realy small size Window acros and then resize it, if I try to drag accross a large Window the image is either lost or in a wrong place in the TV window. It usualy takes about 3 goes to get satisfactory display on the Magnavox 68 cm TV connected via S-Video to TV out of the Gigabyte Radeon 7000 64MB AGP.

ANY suggestion how to get the Clone setting to display the TV program or alternatively how to set up the extended desktop to start up with TV program in the TV part of extended desk top?

Any suggestions will be greately appreciated. Vic

[RisingPhoenix]

Hey,

have you enabled your overlay settings?

What catalysts are you running?

On the later versions, in desktop properties, go into advanced (on the primary monitor (ie your display) there should then be a Overlay Tab, then a "Clone Mode Options" button, select that, then pick theater mode, select your display type, and then play with the other settings (ie resize) until it suits your tv out the way you like! hope this helps!

Steve

[Croc]

in overlay section (for your video card) there is somewhere option where you want it to show.

i have atm radeon in my system with aver card so can't tell you spot on where too look for this settings but it did work no problems with nvidia card before so have good look.

EDIT: doh i should read whole post, you have readon as well

all i do is

1.enable tv out

2.start tuner software (or any media player for dvds, mpg files etc..)

3.go to overlay tab in display settings and enable theater mode (leave other options as they are)

this will play any video from your computer at full screen on tv even if you have only small window on your computer screen.

works like dream, zoom player or divx will even work if you minimize to taskbar, all other software need you leave video window on desktop but you can resize to smallest posible size and do your work while someone else is watching tv on big screen.

[bvw1705]

Thanks Rising Phoenix and Crock

Re - AVerTV DVB-T card.

I have followed you instructions and enabled the theatre mode on the clone. This finaly displayed video content (TV Program) on my TV. There was not however full width about, 2-3 inches on the right was black stripe.

The only channels that would display full width were HD channels - full with but only about 1/4 ( I suspect ) of the transmited frame area( if that is the right term ) for example Channel 2 HD tranmition is diplayed with most of the screen missing the only thing I can see is a portion of ABC Logo.

My first question to the forum : Can this card display HD, what software do I need and where do I get it?

So I decided to attemp to fix the above problem ( black stripe on RHS ) by uninstalling the TV (second monitor) in the Control Panel - Display and reinstalling it again as second display clone.

Let me tell you that all those help screens in Windows XP PRO were very confusing but after much button clicking I have installed something !?!?

Strangely enough my original problem (no TV display in the clone) has now corrected itself (or could it have been my setup /lucky key press)

The TV is now exact replica of the primary monitor. And if I run the TV software

the displays are exactly the same ie I get Bert Newton on both displays now. Selecting full screen on the primary monitor gives me full screen on both displays. SO I am almost there but with the overlay/theatre option set, the TV still only displays same as the primary monitor. I can not get the fix you have described above and which worked for me previously (earlier tonight before uninstalling/reinstalling my TV as secondary monitor).

The plethorea of the options to set the RADEON adapter leaves me at this stage very confused. Could someone recommend a good article or three to explain some or all of it please?

Finaly one thing I have observed with this card is that whenever the transmitted signal is in 4:3 aspect ratio this marvelous piece of engineering

( my AVerTV card ) displays it with about 2 inch wide black frame all around.

So instead of having 68 cm full screen 4:3 display I get about 58 cm with black frame all around. I am too naive to expect full edge to edge display on 4:3 aspect ratio TV set with 4:3 aspect ratio transmition?

Or is it AVerMedia way of mourning the soon to pass away 4:3 aspect ratio in Australia?

Somehow I am not sure if I am ready for this Brave New World of TV Broadcasting with so many no so standart standarts. When I studied B/W and colour TV servicing at TAFE there was 625 lines, 50 Hz, 4:3 Aspect Ratio, PAL B colour and it all made sense. You could unpack your TV from the box, plug it in the wall and voila picture and sound.

One would expect that once the digital TV is generaly accepted, the customers voting with their vallets will sort this mess out like the VHS / BETA saga and

some standarts might go the way of quadrophonic amplifiers and 8 track players.

Untill then I suppose I just have to stragle on. Cheers Vic.

[PaulP33]

Finaly one thing I have observed with this card is that whenever the transmitted signal is in 4:3 aspect ratio this marvelous piece of engineering

( my AVerTV card ) displays it with about 2 inch wide black frame all around.

So instead of having 68 cm full screen 4:3 display I get about 58 cm with black frame all around. I am too naive to expect full edge to edge display on 4:3 aspect ratio TV set with 4:3 aspect ratio transmition?

I think this is because all digital is in 16:9 so when 4:3 video is shown it comes with the black bars on left and right to keep the aspect ratio correct. Your TV then adds the black bars top and bottom to show the 16:9 (4:3 picture plus black bars on the sides) picture and again preserve aspect ratio. If your TV has aspect ratio control you can use that to correct it otherwise your video card might be able to?

[bvw1705]

Thank you PaulP33 for your comments.

That was the conclusion that I came to also. It appears that this card outputs a format 16:9 only which means black bars on the top and bottom of of the 4:3 aspect ratio TV. And if the transmition is in 4:3 Aspect Ratio it adds two vertical black bars hence the black frame all around. So if I got myself 16:9 aspect ratio display device I would get full screen in 16:9 transmition format and two vertical black stripes if the transmitted signal was 4:3 picture content.

The STB conected to 4:3 TV that I saw in my friends place (not sure which brand) gave full screen on 4:3 transmition and two vertical bars top and bottom on 16:9 Transmition. Much less black all told and lot more acceptable compromise in my view since my Magnavox 68 cm is only about 1 year old.

Last year when I was deciding what to buy when my old TV finaly gave up a ghost, there was not much in the way of STB's just Teac and Thompson for about $300 each and the difference between old and new aspect ratio TV about $1000 plus plus. Since the analog TV still had 5 or more years to run I opted for a very cheap 68 cm TV and spend the thousand I saved on wine, women and song.

I am waiting for the prices of the 16:9 display devices to come down to more atractive levels and since I had lazy $200 lying around I bought this AVerTV card to experiment with alternative digital TV, being a computer hobyist and sucker for punishment. We live in exciting times.

It is all good fun and from reading this forum there is a lot of people of the same ilk. Merry Christmass to you all. Vic.

[PaulP33]

I used to use PowerDVD to play back files that I recorded with the avermedia (I only use the avermedia for recording, all live TV is watched with a STB) and if I remember rightly you can trim off the black bars from within powerDVD when you play 4:3 content. Doesn't help you for live TV. Personally I am hoping that some decent third party HTPC software will eventually support the AverTV card and then your problems may be solved.

[bvw1705]

Hello again PAULP33.

I confess that a thought occured to me,flogging the AVerTV card and buying myself the STB instead.

So far I am resisting the idea for the following reasons:

1) AVerTV card supports recording to HDD but only very expensive STB's do that.

2) AverTV card has the onboard hardware ( I believe -from reading this forum and others) to support HD and only very expensive HD STB's do that.

I know there are other cards that do the the same things better, but I did not know that when I first saw this card for sale on Ebay.

Reading the specs on Ebay it seemed that this card offered step by step development of PC based home entertainment system with build-in Digital TV, HDD recording, DVD player/recorder, digital and 5.1 sound and CD, MP3 playback and recording,also you could throw in your photos and home made videos, in short Audio Visual Control Centre.

The attraction to me was that I could do it step by step as the funds, time and enthusiasm came togegther.

I think I will stick with this card a bit longer.

Like you I hope that some integrated software will eventualy become availible.

Meanwhile I wil try experimenting with PAN and SCAN software described by MrTiny in his post 15 called YXY and availible from:

http://www.keohi.com/koehihdtv/htpc/yxy/yxy.html

I have not downloaded it yet but from reading the post that promises some progress. I will report back latter. VIC

[digitaladvisor]

Hi bvw1705

Here's a solution that works for me on a large 4:3 TV.

Using Radeon to 'magnify' a 4:3 transmission and fill the screen of a 4:3 with less black bars top and bottom:

Called Virtual desktop or horizontal scrolling method.

1. Allow Powerstrip to give custom resolution of around 1100 * 600 or 1024 * 600.

2. The desktop will virtualise but your 4:3 material will fill the 4:3 screen much more. You are now using the power of the Radeon to rescale rather then the software.

3. Another favourite setting is 900 * 600 - this gives one a larger presentation for ultra wide format DVD movies - cinema scope.

Software should have this feature as follows:

Software does have it. DigiBox has an excellent CROP function that slices off the black or chops the 16:9 material for 4:3 screens now.

Now I am aware PowerDVD and WinDVD have pan and scan but you can greatly overcome the limitation of other software by this scrolling feature of the Radeon.

Widescreen in SVHS output:

One guy who has a Radeon plugged into SVHS input on Widescreen uses 800 * 600 but then allows the set to stretch. By setting the DVB-T software to non-fixed ratio the 16:9 is tall but normalises with the Widescreens stretching rescaling ability.

HD Displays:

HDTV display is very different and varies greatly. Worth time here but many experiment with VGA output either trancoded to HD component or plug directly VGA into RGBHV/VGA input and define the optimum setting for the HD widescreen display timing at 50Hz vertical.

All HD sets are never made equal and many have cliff hanger responses to specific HD timings in 1080i. You have to define how far one can push the physical timings of the HD display before internal scaler cuts in (which can mess up computer signal and have a mind of its own). Another issue is defining this threshold at OPTIMUM setting - that is some sort of trade off without 1080i rescaling and best native potiental with rescale 1080i cutting in.

Some HD displays in rescaled 1080i detection threshold do a better job of it then others. Others will response to some timings and go into distortion. Just be aware that in reality no such HD CRT can display natively 1080i. Accordingly armed with this information we can then choose what we perceive a better picture.

Personnaly depending on the physical ability of HD, 720p may be better. Just remember here a majority of HD sets (1st Generation) actually respond to this signal and upscale and others WILL not time to a deliberate physical input of 720p @ 50Hz from a computer.

In most cases if one can get the computer graphics to custom to 1920 * 576p @ 50Hz you will find the result may be excellent on the HD as it may not rescale to 1080i but physically lock this display mode. Others will intepret this timing and upscale to 1080i.

Either way as PAL DVD is in reality 576i defining a computer 576p @ 50Hz ensures matched rescaling of DVD to a HD display even if the HD 'decides' to upscale to 1080i.

One thing here, they all seem to handle well 540p @ 50Hz. Here the computer is rescaled in the HD display - )automatically rescales to 1080i and is quite happy.)

So what I am saying here seems to be evidence that most CRT displays and projectors are in reality 540 line progressive physical capable displays. Sony's latest offering in CRT 86cm is now claiming TRUE 720p physical. And this claim seems to be true and verified by the many positive comments about this second generation HD 86cm widescreen display.

Finally:

The shadowy debate of HD verses SD has gone on far too long. In chasing then the holy grail of 1080i may make sense by ensuring the computer is running physically in 1080i @ 50Hz remembering this is in reality 25Hz due to the interlace factor.

But..... by having the computer to rescale to 1080i @ 50Hz and the HD display to take the signal and rescale as well may not always result in optimum display for either!

My personal preference is 720p @ 50Hz if the HD display will display. This covers extraction of DVD at max upscale and upscales SD/EHD but finds a middle ground for 1080i. Find then what's best for your own display.

Regards

DA

[PaulP33]

I confess that a thought occured to me,flogging the AVerTV card and buying myself the STB instead.

So far I am resisting the idea for the following reasons:

For me having both is ideal. It gives me far more flexibility than having the card alone as probably 50% of my recording is done because I want to watch two things at the same time. I can watch one with the STB and record the other with the card and get WS and digital quality for both. I also use a Mpeg decoder card to connect the computer to the TV (to get a component connection) so that rules out using the card for live watching anyway until the HTPC software for the decoder supports digital cards.

As irritating and frustrating as it has been at times I would never consider getting rid of the card, it has been invaluable in freeing me from the tyranny of unlabelled video tapes!

2) AverTV card has the onboard hardware ( I believe -from reading this forum and others) to support HD and only very expensive HD STB's do that.

I have had a bit of a play around with this. I successfully recorded some HD from channel nine and when played back on a computer monitor it looked great (although my poor celeron 1.7 was really struggling to keep up). The problem is that as soon as the avermedia card starts decoding the picture (that is one of my bugbears with the software, it can't just record the stream without decoding it at the same time) it seems to stuff the video card overlay and I have to reboot the computer to get it back. With a more powerful CPU and slightly more flexible software I don't see why this card could not be adequate for HD.

The other thing that attracted me to this card is the analogue inputs but I have not really played around with these enough yet to know how well the card handles encoding.

[captaineos]

PaulP33, with your celeron 1.7 and avermedia, can it decode SD without any problems?

[PaulP33]

Yes, just running the avermedia software the CPU runs at about 60% utilisation. It also handles 576p (seven and SBS) OK but I have never checked the CPU utilisation. I think playing back recordings with powerDVD uses even less CPU. Using the decoder card only requires 4-5%.

[digitaladvisor]

2) AverTV card has the onboard hardware ( I believe -from reading this forum and others) to support HD and only very expensive HD STB's do that.

This is simply not true on other DVB-t cards.

The Aver Card...decoding.....well because the software is rather poor it cannot decode on reasonable processors. Not the fault of the hardware but the pathetic software.

Here's a comparison on VP athough more expensive :

HD on 1Gig CPU Smooth but very rare drop out

HD on 1.5Gig CPU Perfect

HD on 2 Gig Perfect

Widescreen / 4:3 Support Crop/Non-aspect lock for Widescreen SVHS/composite rescaling

Recording of SD/HD Perfect if Aerial and cabling improved

Software Digibox/Schedular from Internet/ Simplex record / Other software

Ongoing Card specific drivers/Software Almost perfect now, DD Sound, correct scanning etc, DXVA support.

Reccomended proper MPEG support in graphic card with CPU low overhead and responsive DXVA support - A radeon Card from $120.00

No analog capture - but supplemented with a $75 analog capture Tv vard.

However the Aver card remains a bargain for just SD. You want HD - you are going to wait for updates or buy a batter card with better software.

Regards

DA

[PaulP33]

With a more powerful CPU and slightly more flexible software I don't see why this card could not be adequate for HD.

I should add to this that as far as I know, even though it does seem to be able to record HD for playback with something that can handle it, you will only have the stereo sound. Given the slow development of SD software for this card I doubt that it will ever support HD properly unless a third party writes the software for it.

[bvw1705]

Thanks PaulP33 and Digital Advisor.

I have carried some experiments of my own on the 4:3 Aspect Ratio

I have found that if i run my 4:3 TV as extended desktop I can drag the AVerTV TV display accros to the TV set (Secondary Display), leaving the control panel in the Computer Monitor ( Primary Display ).

I can then oversize the 4:3 image in the black frame:

Using first the cards menu and selecting 720 x 576 size and then draging the edges of the window I can completely eliminate the vertical bars on either side of the screen. I still have about 1/2 to 3/4 inch horizontal black bar at the top and bottom but it is quite bearable, much better than watching a postage stamp with black frame in the clone mode.

I am sure that the black bar at the top and bottom is due to the fact that when using the when Radeon card TV / Properties / Adjustments / Screen size and position controls, I can not adjust the the picture to maximum height. It run out of steps but there is still some black area at the top, bottom or top and bottom, depending where I set the position control.

It is strange because when the PC is POSTing and displays the initial screen -

during the BIOS initialision stage (before the Window XP screen) I have my TV set displaying top to bottom picture with no black bars anywhere.

I assume that at this stage the Radeon card is diplaying plain old VGA 640 x 480 resolution and default is ( since it has not read any config files yet) Primary Display ( computer monitor ) and TV out configured as a Clone (exact copy of the Primary display) both at VGA 640 X 480.

I would be quite happy at this stage to drive my TV with 640 x 480 resolution and get standart definition picture. I have read on " Expert tips on Keohi.com HDTV that since I am using the S-Video connection to my TV, the actual resolution offered to my TV is paltry 480i at 50 Hz.

That was another unplesant suprise for me. But it explains why the computer generated image looks so crapy on the TV connected via S-video cable to such a good AGP card.

But the Radeon Resolution settings does not seem to give me the option of ordinary 640 x 480 VGA. It seem that minimum resolution my Radeon Card is prepared to offer is 800 x 640. And if I use that, I get the height problem mentioned above. The Window XP extended desk top (green grass page) has the about 3/4 inch black stripe top and bottom.

Back to the lab I suppose. If anybody has some spare body parts bring it over.

Ask for doctor VIC Frankenstein. I think I am creating a monster.

We live in exiting time as the Chinese curse would have it.

Vic

[digitaladvisor]

Hi bvw1705

Radeon specifics:

You can actually turn OVERSCAN on.

Get ultility called Rage3D and go into DVD section and you'll find MPEG optimization features INCLUDING OVERSCAN.

Tick overscan

Reboot

Then go into Radeon properties under Tv out and you see an overscan button.

Ideal resolution for Radeon on Tv interlaced output is 800 * 600 - in overscan mode it ONLY works on Tv out mode.

You are using dual monitor handling. I don't do things like this at all as my main display is a large 80cm TV 4:3.

For displays levels like 640 *480 you use Powerstrip OR Rage3D actually have a selected range of CUSTOM resolutions.

Via Powerstrip you can force 640 * 480 but I do not see point in doing this resolution - it is too low even for PAL interlaced TV - and more suitable for NTSC Us interlaced TV's.

Hope this helps

DA

[Guest Gizmomelb]

With a more powerful CPU and slightly more flexible software I don't see why this card could not be adequate for HD.

I should add to this that as far as I know, even though it does seem to be able to record HD for playback with something that can handle it, you will only have the stereo sound. Given the slow development of SD software for this card I doubt that it will ever support HD properly unless a third party writes the software for it.

Hiya,

yes.. unfortunately there is slow development for this card, but it is being made and they are listening (and hopefully acting) on the feedback from the users on here and other forums. Just got this this morning from my Avermedia contact.

"So far, our DVB-T does not support record function in Full-screen mode. If you want to record the program, you have to switch back to the normal mode. The orginal design concern for this is that the control panel will be hidden in full-screen mode. We'll take it into the next version to enable some hot key in the keyboard or remote.

As for HDTV, it's still on development. And we're trying to speed up to reach the market. "

Avermedia know there is strong competition in the PC DTV tuner market, and the Avermedia DVB-T is going to come up against some very strong competition with the Vison Plus being 'near' the same price range.

[PaulP33]

It's good to hear that they are moving forward although I'm not sure why they should be concerned that the control panel would be hidden, you can reduce the screen if you want the control panel or the remote can handle the main functions anyway. Good to hear that they are working on HDTV, I'll pull my head back in.......

I don't suppose you could worm out of your contact what other things we might see in the near future?

[bvw1705]

Hello digitaladvisor and rest of the guys.

I realy appreciate the tips in this thread.

I was away for a few days and this is the first chance to read your mail.

I think it is great that digital advisor can use his large screen TV as his only monitor. Unfortunately my TV has only composite video input or S-Video.

Mark Rehjon tips on keohi.com etc state that both inputs can only accept 480 horizontal lines interlaced.

Can anyone confirm this?

And if it is the case, what is the a difference between composite and S-Video.

Is it maybe that S-Video has separate sync signals?

I was under impression that S-Video should give you a better quality picture.

The reason I have bought Radeon with TV out was that the AVerTV promotional literature ( while I was waiting for delivery of the card ) stated quite clearly that if I wanted to get TV display I need a card with TV out and harware capable of supporting DirectX 8 or higher.

I suspect that digitaladvisor's TV can accept RGB or even SVGA computer monitor signals. Unfortunately my basic 68 cm TV only has composite and S-Video inputs.

I was not expecting HD ot of this setup. SD is all I was after at this stage due to my TV being just ordinary TV set. I would not say NO if AVerTV developed software for HD as I intend to get some type of HD display device in future.

According to MARK REHJON no matter what resolution I am pushing out of the RADEON, the TV output will be converted down to 480i for the S-Video TV OUT connection to my TV. That is why I would like to try the 640 x 480 VGA since that seem to get largest display on my TV - when I just turn the computer on and before it loads Windows I do get edge to edge picture horizontaly and verticaly on my TV connected to the S-Video TV out of my Gigabyte Radeon GV-R7064T video card. I will try that Powerstrip method when I have a bit of time.

Thanks one more time for all your tips and please comment on this 480i resolution on S-Video.

Regards Vic.