Graphics card outputs

haydnyates · **23rd December 2004, 04:25 PM**

G.day Mike (or anyone).

I bought Jan 2005 APC magazine to check out the Media Center PC reviews.

I've got a long standing question someone might be able to help me with.
(Don't know if this is the best place to post).

The Acer Aspire T620 has an ATI X300SE graphics card, which for $165 can be upgraded to an X600PRO (Much better!!)
My question with the latter is....

Say I have a 17" LCD Screen running at 1280 x 1024
I also have a Large Plasma or LCD Screen on the Wall, at 16:9 size, or whatever they are.
(The X600PRO has both RGB out, for the monitor, and DVI out, for the big screen)

Can I / How do I, configure the settings so that do not get black bars down the size of the plasma?
Obviously, the LCD Monitor is Square(ish) where as the Plasma is rectangle.
Does driver software make this possible? Or do I have to have 2 graphics cards?

Any thoughts are much appreciated!
By the way, I went to the Acer website into the Build your own section, and upped everything.
Still came in much cheaper than the HP, (only firewire still has to be manually put in, bugger!)
Thanks!

Haydn

Mike · **23rd December 2004, 07:03 PM**

Hi Haydn,

OK, I'm not a technician but my understanding of the issue is as follows:

The black sidebars on the 16:9 screen are the result of the type of output produced by your video source.

Normal TV (analogue) is broadcast in 4:3 ratio and so the sidebars will always be present.* However if you're watching digital TV or DVD movie output, they're broadcast/filmed in widescreen (16:9) and so will fill the screen. It's similar to when you watch a DVD movie on a normal TV, you get the horizontal top and bottom black bars* because to fit the entire width of the 16:9 output, it shrinks the picture and hence the top and bottom bars.* Of course with many DVD players you can select to watch the DVD in 4:3 format but you then lose the left and right edges of the movie.

I don't believe there's a solution to avoid the black sidebars on a widescreen monitor other than watching only widescreen output.

The only problem with the sidebars is the possibility of long term "burn in" on a Plasma screen (not with LCD) whereby prolonged viewing of 4:3 output will eventually leave a ghost of those lousy bars.* Not sure how long that will take, but I'd assume it would take a few years.

Mike

haydnyates · **25th December 2004, 02:22 PM**

Mike (and anyone else who reads).

I finally found the answer to my question on the US equivalent of this website.....
http://www.xpmce.com/forum/ftopic82973.html

Quoted below, the answer iss....
Posted: Thu Apr 15, 2004 5:00 pm
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
mce runs on primary display only.... so try this.
right click, properties, settings.
highlight your sedcondary display
check extend desktop , and make this your primary display.
be sure you go to your display dialogue tab in the advanced and enable your secondary display device.
if you unlock your taskbar you can place it on any display.
i have my secondary"primary" display on my tv, for mce only.
my taskbar and all other apps run on my pc monitor.
hope this helps

I can't believe it !! It can be done. Woohhooo!
Now, to start saving for that 30" LCD..... :-\

Haydn

Mike · **29th December 2004, 08:05 PM**

That's really cool Haydn!! - hurry up and get it done - I really want to hear about the result 8)

haydnyates · **29th December 2004, 08:23 PM**

Howdy Mike

If it was my purchase, I'd have had it weeks ago!
Unfortunately, I'm waiting for a guy to get back from the UK on the 10th so he can shear $$$ off of this Acer purchase.
Currently the RRP for what I'm getting stands at $2999. However, since he got my last notebook for me for $3499 (RRP $3999), I'm hoping to go down a similar path!

Here's the system specs... feel free to comment on them (good and bad)...

ASPIRE T620
* 7-in-1 media card reader.
* Intel chipset 915P
* Micro tower.
* 3x bays, 2x PCI, 1x PCI ex1, 1x PCI-ex16.
* 1x serial, 1x parallel, 6x USB 2.0.
* SPDIF (Sony Philips Digital Interface), in & out.
OPERATING SYSTEM Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005
CPU Intel® Pentium® 4 530 with HT Technology (3.0GHz 1MB L2 cache 800MHz FSB)
MEMORY 512 MB PC3200 DDR-SDRAM
GRAPHICS Sapphire X600Pro 128MB VGA DVI-in TV-out PAL w/
HARD DRIVE 200GB S-ATA Hard Drive (7200 RPM)
STORAGE BAY1 DVD+/-RW 16x Dual layer
STORAGE BAY2 None
STORAGE BAY3 7-in-1 digital media reader
NETWORK Integrated 10/100 LAN
MODEM 56Kbps internal fax modem
TV TUNER MCE TV Tuner card and remote receiver
KEYBOARD Acer USB keyboard
MOUSE Silver optical mouse USB
SPEAKERS Black 2-piece speakers
MONITOR Acer AL1751W 17" Silver Digital Widescreen LCD

If I can pick that up for around $2599, I'd be stoked.

But then there are the additional costs of course :-\ for...
Logitech Dinovo Bluetooth desktop (about $330 over the web).
Firewire card (not essential at this stage, but available from Acer)
A HDTV Card (about $200 from memory)

If this guy wasn't overseas, I'd probably be posting this FROM this damn computer !!
Unfortunately, he is, so the old man has got bored and today bought a Bose Lifestyle 18 system to hook into the SPDIF port!
(Well, they were $1000 off today you know !!!)

BenP · **4th January 2005, 03:42 PM**

Hi Hayden,

I have the Radeon 9600XT graphics card and it has a specific Home theatre setting for the second display where you can set it at 16X9 to ensure that your digital tuner and DVD are shown in correct ratio.

Cheers

haydnyates · **4th January 2005, 04:00 PM**

Thanks Ben.

The 9600XT and the X600 are the same cards (as far as I've read)!
It's definately nice to hear of a real live case of it working though.......You bewdy!
Cheers mate!

Haydn

acehany · **30th January 2005, 12:43 AM**

BenP:would you please tell me where I can find the Home Theatre setting for 9600XT,I have my Panasonic AE700 front projector as my second monitor(extended desktop) in 1280*720 resolution,working o.k.Just was looking for 16:9 setting,but didn't find it.Btw:this forum is great and this is my first post.,and sorry for my bad english,I am a Czech.

BenP · **4th February 2005, 10:21 PM**

GO to the ATI advanced settings, then select the overlay tab, then you can go into advanced settings and find the home theatre setting there.

When you find it you will see that you can set the native setting to 16X9 so that anything that has been shot in 16x9 will be shown in that ratio. Anything that has been shot in 4x3 will come up with the black sidebars. This is good because you don't get the stretched faces on 4x3 broadcasts.

Cheers

Ben

acehany · **5th February 2005, 11:32 PM**

Thanks BenP,I got it.very cool!!!