Mailing List Archive: DPI and Proportions

DPI and Proportions

Mar 18, 2003, 7:54 AM

Post #1 of 5 (1894 views)

Last night I was attempting to tune my MythBox which is now hooked up to
my 32" TV with an AITech Web Plus VGA to NTSC converter. I came across
an interesting phenomenon which I was hoping someone could help explain.

I'm using 640x480 @ 60Hz - 16 bit color.

When using the default 75 DPI, everything in Myth is correctly
proportioned (all menus, buttons, etc fit on the screen nicely). Fonts
don't look all that great and fonts on the buttons seem small in
proportion.

Now, when I tried using 100 DPI (startx -- -dpi 100) proportions seemed
to get out of whack. Some screens were fine (main button screen) but
setup menus, 'watch recordings', and some other screens were not
proportioned correctly at all. Vertical, Horizontal or both were too
long. Aside from the screen proportions being off, the fonts and
clarity seemed great! I'd love to keep it at this setting but how do I
fix the skewed proportions?

And as an aside I've been fighting frantically to get the display on my
TV to look the best it can. Seems that nothing I do really makes a
difference. Could people offer up or point me to info to help in this?
Any one else using a VGA to NTSC converter?
X Resolution? (does it help to use non-standard?)
Color Depth?
etc..

-Beev

Re: DPI and Proportions [ In reply to ]

mjw at woogie

Mar 18, 2003, 9:50 AM

Post #2 of 5 (1844 views)

Permalink

Brian A. Vance wrote:

>And as an aside I've been fighting frantically to get the display on my
>TV to look the best it can. Seems that nothing I do really makes a
>difference. Could people offer up or point me to info to help in this?
>Any one else using a VGA to NTSC converter?
>X Resolution? (does it help to use non-standard?)
>Color Depth?
>etc..
>
>
Well, I'm not sure what you mean by "the best it can", but I have an
e-TV VGA to NTSC converter from startech.com. The problem I have is
that colors close to white get rendered as white. No adjustment seems
to help, since it's really only the light colors that need a brightness
adjustment. I can't necessarily blame it on the converter, since it
could be my 15 year old TV. When I get time, I'll drag a TV down from
upstairs to compare against.

Woogie

Re: DPI and Proportions [ In reply to ]

Cliff.Draper at Sun

Mar 18, 2003, 11:14 AM

Post #3 of 5 (1844 views)

Permalink

From: Mike Wohlgemuth <mjw@woogie.net>
Date: Tue, 18 Mar 2003 11:50:47 -0500
> Well, I'm not sure what you mean by "the best it can", but I have an
> e-TV VGA to NTSC converter from startech.com. The problem I have is
> that colors close to white get rendered as white. No adjustment seems
> to help, since it's really only the light colors that need a brightness
> adjustment. I can't necessarily blame it on the converter, since it
> could be my 15 year old TV. When I get time, I'll drag a TV down from
> upstairs to compare against.

After trying for several days to get an old ATI's TV-out to work, I
purchased a VGA-to-NTSC converter from startech.com as well. Setup
and installation was so easy. However, the colors were oversaturated
(colors tend towards white) on my 3 year old TV, and I had no way to
tune it. So, I got a gForce4. Spent 30 minutes setting it up, and it
works great.

Cliff Draper Sun Microsystems, Forte Tools
My opinions may or may not reflect those of my employer.
---------------------------- food for thought ---------------------------
All programmers are playwrights and all computers are lousy actors.

Re: DPI and Proportions [ In reply to ]

mythtv at zencow

Mar 21, 2003, 2:07 PM

Post #4 of 5 (1847 views)

Permalink

Cliff Draper wrote
> After trying for several days to get an old ATI's TV-out to work, I
> purchased a VGA-to-NTSC converter from startech.com as well. Setup
> and installation was so easy. However, the colors were oversaturated
> (colors tend towards white) on my 3 year old TV, and I had no way to
> tune it. So, I got a gForce4. Spent 30 minutes setting it up, and it
> works great.

Are you using a dual-headed output mode, or are you just booting
your machine with no monitor, with just the TV-out connected?

I've been wanting to setup dual-headed with TV-out, but I haven't found
all the info in one place. Some mentions to nvtv (which I've played
with a bit) and some mentions of creating new entries in the XF86Config
file to create special output modes for TV-out, but I'm not sure if
that was the "old way" and "nvtv" is the "new way" or if I need to
set things up using both the configs and the utility.

I've got a couple machines that could be candidates for this. One
with a GeForce2MX and the other a GeForce4 (both are dual-headed).

-Chris

Re: DPI and Proportions [ In reply to ]

Cliff.Draper at Sun

Mar 21, 2003, 4:28 PM

Post #5 of 5 (1840 views)

Permalink

From: Chris Palmer <mythtv@zencow.com>
Date: Fri, 21 Mar 2003 13:07:18 -0800 (PST)
> Are you using a dual-headed output mode, or are you just booting
> your machine with no monitor, with just the TV-out connected?

I temporarily had it dual-headed (VGA and TV-out) while I was doing
initial setup. While I had a monitor attached to the VGA port, I had
to add the following line to the Screen section of XF86Config-4:
Option "ConnectedMonitor" "TV"

But now that it's single-headed, it automatically detects that.

> I've been wanting to setup dual-headed with TV-out, but I haven't found
> all the info in one place. Some mentions to nvtv (which I've played
> with a bit) and some mentions of creating new entries in the XF86Config
> file to create special output modes for TV-out, but I'm not sure if
> that was the "old way" and "nvtv" is the "new way" or if I need to
> set things up using both the configs and the utility.

If you want 2 separate screens with 2 separate outputs (VGA & TV-Out)
with an nVidia card, you'll need to use their TwinView. I've set it
up before, it wasn't that hard. There's a spot in there for saying
what type of output device the second screen is attached to ("TV" in
this case). I've never used nvtv before.

Cliff Draper Sun Microsystems, Forte Tools
My opinions may or may not reflect those of my employer.
---------------------------- food for thought ---------------------------
Computers make very fast, very accurate mistakes.