Trying to play movies using GeForce4 Ti4800 TV Out

[bbwoolfy]

Hi,

I've been trying to get movies to playback on my TV using the TV Out of my GeForce4 Ti 4800.

I can get a clone of my desktop to appear when I connect to the TV with a scart cable but the problems begin as soon as I try to playback a movie (avi) using media player 2 - i.e. the screen goes white and flickers.

By the way, I'm in the UK so we use PAL signal for TV over here.

I've messed about with the display settings for my gfx card, and changed the output signal for my TV to NTSC. This had the effect of changing the output to black & white, but it DID allow me to view the video I've been trying to watch (in black and white though )

Anybody got any ideas how I can watch my DivX/XviD movies in colour on my TV? :?

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

P.S. I'm using ffdshow and I've also tried using powerdvd on the off chance of it being a problem specific to mplayer2, but alas it's still the same.

[anonymez]

welcome to the forum

as soon as I try to playback a movie (avi) using media player 2 - i.e. the screen goes white and flickers.

the entire screen or the player window? take it off clone mode so just the TV has the image, and try playing then.

usually a problem with nvidia drivers, i'd start by making sure they're a revision from the geforce titanium period.

[RFBurns]

Howdy!

For starters, the tv must be able to accept the NTSC standard, otherwise all you will get is b/w video because the color frequency is different between PAL and NTSC. The scan frequencies are close match thus a PAL tv can see the luminance of the NTSC signal, but not the color signal.

The video card's tv output needs to be set for PAL. It should work unless there is something wrong with the tv's external input circuitry.

[bbwoolfy]

welcome to the forum

Thanks... and thanks for your reply!

the entire screen or the player window? take it off clone mode so just the TV has the image, and try playing then.

usually a problem with nvidia drivers, i'd start by making sure they're a revision from the geforce titanium period.

The whole screen! As soon as I hit the play button for the movie the whole screen goes white and flickers - even if the window isn't maximised or full screen.

I'll try update my drivers, they are titanium drivers though. I'll also try it with just the TV as the main output, although it's an older TV and very difficult to read text... I'll try find the play button! lol

Howdy!

For starters, the tv must be able to accept the NTSC standard, otherwise all you will get is b/w video because the color frequency is different between PAL and NTSC. The scan frequencies are close match thus a PAL tv can see the luminance of the NTSC signal, but not the color signal.

The video card's tv output needs to be set for PAL. It should work unless there is something wrong with the tv's external input circuitry.

Thanks for your reply. Yup, I figured that was the problem with the PAL/NTSC thing, just thought I'd try NTSC output as I was unable to get any video playback using pal. If what anonymez suggested doesn't work I'll perhaps try it on another TV, see if that solves anything.

Cheers!

[bbwoolfy]

Well... I did as you said anonymez and set it to single display mode (using the TV as the main display) and it worked!

However, I've also been experiencing problems with the quality of Xvid/DivX playback and updated to the latest GeForce drivers (ForceWare) - this solved the problem and video playback quality is great (once again).

But... in doing so, I noticed that there's no (apparent) way to adjust or enable the overlay setting, so now I can't get video playback on the TV at all - in single display mode or otherwise.

Any suggestions?

[anonymez]

you could either do some trial & error with different driver revisions (and remember next time to pick an ATI card for tv out) or use VMR instead of overlay mixer, should allow video to be rendered on both displays at once. if you don't think your player supports it, download media player classic, go options-->output and set VMR7 (IIRC gf titanium isn't dx9 compatible, so VMR9 probably won't work) and play

[bbwoolfy]

Yeah, I remember a mate of mine saying that ATI were far better cards for video playback... before he switched to nVidia as ATI were always too slow with driver revisions for games! lol

VMR? Not sure what that is but I can try what you say on media player classic (mplayer2) as that's what I always used to use.

Anyhoo, I managed to solve the problem (of sorts), I can now get fullscreen video playback using single screen mode and the TV as the output, but in order to get it in colour I have to run the TV setup wizard each time!

Not ideal, in fact a pain in the arse tbh, but it does for the moment.

If anyone can suggest a method of how I can use clone mode and get fullscreen video playback working on my TV then that would be great!

[anonymez]

If anyone can suggest a method of how I can use clone mode and get fullscreen video playback working on my TV then that would be great!

using VMR. media player classic is not mplayer2, an old version of wmp that comes with windows. it has a similar interface but is much better