CurtPalme.com Home Theater Forum

[Stinger72]

If this post is somewhat of a rerun of posts, I apologize. I have a HTPC with a NVIDIA GForce 5700(old card) and I am running this signal through a Extron DDS 402 scaler. I don't feel like upgrading the card . I have heard people getting around 1080p by using 1600x1200. I was reading the manual for the Extron and I believe that the highest cpu resolution it can take is 1600x1200, but it does not output that resolution, but 576p, 720p, 1080p and of course good old 1080i. If 1920x1080 equalls 1080p, what the heck is 1600x1200 equal ? And what type of feed should I allow from the HTPC to feed the scaler that will eventually go to a Barco Data 808 via the RGBHV imputs? Thanks for any suggestions in advance.

[Stinger72]

Anyone have an idea of what I should do?

[LOTREE]

Are you able to watch a DVD/Blu-ray on the computer using just a regular monitor at maxed resolution 1600x1200, assuming your monitor can support it? If so you shouldn't need a scaler/HDFury if doing VGA out. 1600x1200 would be 1200P, the limit of your projector. Any scaling is done by the computer and picture corrections(color, brightness, contrast, gamma) can also be controlled through player software(PowerDVD, ZoomPlayer, etc.) If you want to adjust to 1080p download PowerStrip for custom resolutions. I'm running 1024x768 for DVD material and the picture looks about as good as I can get for now out of a 7" ECP.

[Stinger72]

LOTREE,

I don't have a Blu Ray in my system as of yet, just a basic DVD drive. I have a flat panel to test, but the max res for it is 1400x900. I have the scaler since I am using it as a switch as well for my RCA DTC-100 and my Samsung SIR-T451. I didn't think of using the vga out of the computer straight to the projector as I am using the Extron's BNC outputs instead. I will see what max res I can get from the HTPC to the flat panel and how it looks. I will have to figure out another way to keep my other components though if this is an ideal setup. I will download the Powerstrip and give it a whirl.
Thanks

[LOTREE]

In that case, since the scaler is being used also as a switch, the computer is mostly acting as a big DVD player. If you find the picture is good at either 720p or 1080i then I'd stick with that. I'm not sure how the passthrough for your scaler will work. If it allows custom resolution through to the projector then certainly play around with PowerStrip if you're either seeing scanlines or the picture is too soft. If the computer is going to do all the scaling work you can even try ZoomPlayer with FFDShow filters for added sharpening on the DVD output.

[Stinger72]

Thanks LOTREE for the advice, I had an issue with my computer as it decided to "Crash" on me today for no apparent reason at all??? Anyway once I get out of this class I am taking I will try to run the set up disk and hopefully (fingers crossed) it will recover itself. I'll keep you posted on the resolution war as it unfolds. Again, thanks for the insight you gave.

Stinger72

[Stinger72]

Well I tried numerous times and cannot get my computer to start. I think it is a hardware issue ( I haven't installed any new hardware) I tried to reinstall Vista to no avail. I even installed a new HDD and tried to install Vista...guess what?!?!?! NADT happened!!! It stopped the install and decided to cut off. Well there goes my 675 movies all in one dreadful event. Does anyone know what I can do besides unplugging all the add-on to the computer (already did that) to see what else may be the issue. I would really like to see if I could keep this HTPC since I took my scaler out of the equation....HELP!!!

[WanMan]

If it is cutting off much like a complete loss of power then I would be looking at the power supply and then the motherboard itself. You might try to find a replacement motherboard (even used) based on the same make/model or at least same chipset. A bad drive would present the problem you are observing.

[Stinger72]

WanMan,

Not a complete power loss, it just won't boot up completely. It will prompt me to insert my vista disc and choose repair. However that doesn't seem to fix the issue. I guess I can shop around for a mother board with the same chip set and see what happens. Just don't hope it's the cpu, then I'll be starting from scratch.

Thanks

[WanMan]

Its not the CPU. If it was the CPU it wouldn't POST. I thought that it was completely losing power, but if its not ... what motherboard is this (make/model)?

[Stinger72]

The motherboard is from biostar. I am pretty sure the model is a nf4st-a9 board. When I try to reinstall Vista, it goes to a blue screen and says "windows has detected a problem and has shut down as to not damage the computer. Then it says Memory Management...not skilled with PC's so does that mean that my memory is bad? I built this while in Korea with a friend. My friend gave me the board along with the processor and the memory so it was a freebie. It's about a year old and hasn't done anything like this ever. I am confused about the whole thing. I am not using to do blu ray since i have a separate player, but just to show my dvd files I have stored. I was thinking about adding a tuner card to view clear qam, but at this point I don't think I'll be doing that...LOL!!!

Thanks for the assistance.

[WanMan]

Is this a 32-bit version of Vista and are you using 4GB of RAM? If yes to both then you might be running into the inability to address all the RAM. I had an AMD-based chipset with onboard ATI chipset and I can say I always ran into memory-related problems in XP Pro (32-bit). I swapped out RAM with another computer and limited it to 2GB and it finally became stable.

Are the Vista re-installation attempts is on the same hard drive, or on a new one? If you have an additional drive handy that you can experiment with, and I assume you have another computer to access this board, try installing Ubuntu on another drive with your old drive as a data drive. Once done, see if you can mount the other disk and access the data files.

Ubuntu also affords a live file system approach where you are not installing it. If you feel courageous, just change in the BIOS the 1st boot option to the optical drive and have a Ubuntu image disk in the tray.

[Stinger72]

Yes it is the 32 bit version with roughly 4GB of RAM. I removed it down to roughly 2 GB and it still exhibited the same issues as before. I installed a brand new drive and the same thing happened on the Vista install. I even went to see if I could install XP...and I got the same thing!!! I feel as though this is a hardware issue that I cannot solve and have to take it to a profesional in my area. Thanks for the assistance thus far.

[WanMan]

Ok, let's back up for a second. Was the original drive am IDE device or SATA? This reminds me a lot of that Abit motherboard I mentioned earlier with the AMD chipset made for Intel processors. The host controllers were flaky. One time it would install Vista another time it would not. And when the Vista install failed, the next attempt at the XP install failed. I think this was do to the combination of the IDE optical drive and the SATA hard drive as controlled by the AMD chipset and BIOS.

Once I know what the hard drives are (in bus type), size, and how the BIOS is configured for boot options and how the SATA controller is configured (is it configured to act like SAT, IDE, etc.), I consider it some more.

[Stinger72]

The original drive is an IDE 180 Gig. The second drive is another IDE 750 Gig. The third drive is a SATA 1TB. I have the 180 Gig as the master and the 750 Gig as it's slave. The computer boots from the HD and then the CD for 2nd option. I didn't know that the SATA had to be configured...thought it was just a plug and play type of deal. The 180 Gig has the operating system on it and the other two drives have my movies on them.

[WanMan]

Yes, depending on the BIOS implementation you can configure a SATA device to be treated as an IDE device. It is good that the disk with the OS and the disk with the movies are physically separated. This means you lose nothing.

At this point, and to be able to access the movies now, I'd move the disks to another PC until you can resolve the anomalies with that Nvidia based motherboard. I trust it as much as I [dis]trust the AMD board I have for the Intel CPU its driving.

[Stinger72]

I dropped the unit off to the guys in the C&E section at my job. They did exactly what you said and are going to investigate the issues. I hope they can resolve them soon. I really need to get this thing back and running to shoot an image to my Barco. In the mean time I am thinking about ordering an HD Fury and use my blu ray to set up my image. I will probably get another HDD for the cpu when it comes back and use that for HD content only. I will ask them to set the SATA drive as you said to perform like an IDE if you think that it will perform better in the long run.

[WanMan]

I'm curious. Its hard troubleshooting someone else's computer when it isn't physically in front of you.

[Stinger72]

After weeks without having my cpu running, I finally fixed it. What really puzzles me is the fact that after reinstalling Vista like 75 gagillion times, it was XP that saved the day Anyway, I have my movies back and that's all that matters. Think I'll be using media portal as my program for watching them.