How to use different resolution than Windows desktop?
#1
Question 
I have XBMC 9.11 running Windows XP-SP3 with an Nvidia 8200. My TV is a Samsung 720p DLP that overscans so I set my Windows desktop to 1200x660. How can I make XBMC switch to the 'proper' (1:1 mapped) 1280x720 resolution?

Option #1 would be some way to switch immediately when the app loads. I would then use XBMC's display > zoom setting to keep the menus etc on-screen. But would this also zoom the video playback?

Option #2 would be a way to switch only when playing-back a video. The problem here would be that the OSD might end-up offscreen. So hopefully there's a way to implement the first option -- immediately switch when XBMC loads *AND* only zoom the UI, not the video playback.

Any help is greatly appreciated!

P.S. In the XBMC system-settings menu there's only the one 1200x660 resolution option, i.e., its ignoring all the other possible settings. Is there a way to manually add 1280x720 to that list?
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#2
You cant have a different resolution to your desktop in XBMC any more you would have to go back to an older version to achieve this as they allowed a different resolution

Alternatively you could set up XBMC to use an external player then you can set the external player to switch resolution on full screen playback
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#3
I'm not sure if this is me being stupid here, but the whole point of Under/Overscan scaling is to correct the TV's native resolution.

So although your TV accepts a 720p signal, it will display that signal as 660p.

So if you could set XBMC to 720p and your desktop to 660p, then you would get overscan on all of your video files when played through XBMC....

Hence the feature was removed.... its pointless.
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#4
Overscan has nothing to do with correcting the TVs native resolution there's a number of reasons and that's not one of them
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#5
>>X<<' Wrote:Overscan has nothing to do with correcting the TVs native resolution there's a number of reasons and that's not one of them

Fair enough.... so i was being stupid after all Laugh
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#6
I use the application VidRes to acheive just this. When I load XBMC, Windows switches resolution from my overscanned desktop resolution to 720p.
It works great.
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#7
I prepared a patch in Trac for that http://trac.xbmc.org/ticket/9212, but there isn't agreement among devs at this point. It lists every resolution and frame rates available for each screen, which is overwhelming in XBMC's 10feet interface.
Suggest away if you have an idea to alleviate this problem. All platforms will thank you Smile
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#8
CrystalP Wrote:I prepared a patch in Trac for that http://trac.xbmc.org/ticket/9212, but there isn't agreement among devs at this point. It lists every resolution and frame rates available for each screen, which is overwhelming in XBMC's 10feet interface.
Suggest away if you have an idea to alleviate this problem. All platforms will thank you Smile

Any reason why the chosen resolution couldn't be an advancedsettings entry like window mode has instead of listing all resolutions ?
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#9
Advanced is an option, and I'd be tempted to put it there to be honest, except for the usage as a settop box, where there may be an argument that specifying it in the UI is required for some folk? I don't know - need Live users to give us some info on this.

Essentially there'd be an optional set of resolutions per screen that we'd use rather than the desktop resolution. This is separate from the "what screen am I on" toggling, which should just flip between window/monitor1/monitor2/...

Cheers,
Jonathan
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#10
Separate "what screen am I on" and "set of resolutions" spinners sound good, as having all screens in the same spinner is the major issue for me at the moment.

What about pushing the idea to the end with three spinners:
1. screen (disabled/hidden if only one screen)
2. resolution
3. refresh rate (disabled/hidden when 'auto refresh rate adjust' is enabled)

and move the 'auto refresh rate adjust' setting on the same page, to make the behaviour of spinner #3 understandable and intuitive.
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#11
I see zero point of a refresh rate being there. It's only useful to change it if we're playing back video.
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#12
It makes a big difference in UI smoothness.

Using the desktop refresh rate for XBMC UI would work and still gives control through the Windows control panel. I'm OK with that, and enabling auto refresh rate will adjust to the most appropriate refresh rate during playback.

There are missing refresh rate / resolution combinations though (bad drivers, EDID, vert & hor frequency limits, ...), so we need a fallback. Closest refresh rate shouldn't be a problem, I think.

Does this concept also work in Linux/OSX?
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#13
OS X likely doesn't list hundreds of resolutions, so that should be fine either way. I suspect Linux DOES list loads of resolutions, so that could be tamed in the same way.

Cheers,
Jonathan
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#14
CrystalP Wrote:It makes a big difference in UI smoothness.

Using the desktop refresh rate for XBMC UI would work and still gives control through the Windows control panel. I'm OK with that, and enabling auto refresh rate will adjust to the most appropriate refresh rate during playback.

In my opinion, the user should be allowed to choose one or two optional resolutions for use together with the "adjust resfresh rate" option.
My screen does not support 23.98/24/50/60Hz on the same resolution. Therefor I need to specify an alternate resolution that I would like to use together with 23.98/24Hz videos, since the screen works better in some resolutions than other.

CrystalP Wrote:What about pushing the idea to the end with three spinners:
1. screen (disabled/hidden if only one screen)
2. resolution
3. refresh rate (disabled/hidden when 'auto refresh rate adjust' is enabled)
Maybe the user could be able to select one preferred resolution to each valid refresh rate, is that what you are suggesting? Or is this only for selecting the res/refresh rate to use for the UI?
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6 GB RAM
Win 10 64bit
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#15
PolliSoft Wrote:My screen does not support 23.98/24/50/60Hz on the same resolution. Therefor I need to specify an alternate resolution that I would like to use together with 23.98/24Hz videos, since the screen works better in some resolutions than other.

Maybe the user could be able to select one preferred resolution to each valid refresh rate, is that what you are suggesting? Or is this only for selecting the res/refresh rate to use for the UI?

Same here, my screen can only cover the key refresh rates using different resolutions. A preferred resolution for each refresh rate with auto switching would seem the neatest for this scenario, but would it be too limiting for those who have more flexibility is their setup?
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