Vista Media Center Widescreen over S-Video
I’ve been struggling for months to get my widescreen CRT TV working properly in Vista Media Center. I’ve finally found the solution after grubbing through myriad forums and blogs. This applies most in Europe where anamorphic widescreen is common.
Maybe this will help you.
The problem:
I got everything working, so that I could use the media center. My setup (the relevant parts):
- ATI X1950 GT graphics card
- Hauppauge Nova T-500 DVB-T tuner card
- Bog standard box running Vista Home Premium
- JVC widescreen CRT TV
- ATI card connected to TV via S-Video cable
Everything looked fine when I watched recorded TV, but in fact, the images were stretched too wide. This was most noticable when watching fashion models waddle down the runway.
It turns out it’s quite simple:
- Tasks -> Settings -> TV -> Configure Your TV or Monitor
- Go through the wizard. When it asks ‘Identify Your Display Type’, choose Monitor.
- Now here comes the wierd part. On the next screen, choose ‘DVI, VGA, or HDMI’, even though you are using S-Video.
- On the next screen, choose ‘Widescreen (16:9)’.
- Then choose 576i as your screen resolution.
- From there on in, do what the nice wizard says.
I had to start and stop Media Center after this a few times, as well as playing with the zoom feature on videos, and suddenly, presto, videos were showing in widescreen.
CAVEAT: Don’t know yet what happens after a suspend or a reboot. Will update when I’ve got results.
A few more Media Center Tips:
- MCE Standby Tool will help solve your standby problems. However, do not enable the regular reboots. These seemed to get afoul of my dodgy Vista drivers, so things wouldn’t start up correctly.
- Don’t let Windows Update reboot the machine. Every time my machine reboots, something goes wrong. Do this manually, when nothing is recording and you are sitting there to make sure it is happy.
January 21, 2008 at 1:51 pm
I am having troubles with the same issue and I have 2 more question to you before I run out and buy the same card as yours:
1. Does the card natively support widescreen settings for the s-video output? What resolution do you choose in windows (or do you do it from within mce)?
2. Does it work after reset/reboot?
Thanks.
January 23, 2008 at 9:36 am
1. Apparently, widescreen isn’t something you can support natively over an s-video link. All s-video widescreen is done by stretching the image to widescreen, and then modifying the output appropriately. What this means is that everything is done from within MCE. You windows desktop will operate normally/stretched.
2. Yes. Everything is fine after reboots. Early versions of my motherboard/sound drivers had to reinstall on every reboot, but that seems to have been fixed.
January 23, 2008 at 10:08 am
Yes, I got to the same result yesterday (not what I hoped for
).
I think I will try the road other have succeeded with (VGA->Scart cable + Powerstrip) and hope for the best.
Thanks.
January 18, 2009 at 7:40 pm
Hello there!
Even though the last comment’s been quite a while ago, I’d just like to express my gratitude for this solution. It’s solved an issue that had been bothering me for quite a while now. It worked flawlessly, in my case selecting “alternative resolution” and then going to 720×480.
Cheers again, even after nearly a year, you’ve made this little HTPC owner quite happy.
January 25, 2009 at 1:34 pm
@Rokuta you are very welcome. I posted it because the information was so hard to come by elsewhere.