Play movie on PC/Watch on WS TV

[TAZ420]

I have the Nvidia Gforce FX 5500 (Driver 77.72)
Connected to it is a 15" LCD and a 42" Plasma WS TV (http://www.maxentusa.com/_coreModules/eShopping/productDetail.aspx?productMasterID=14) connected VGA-VGA

I've been playing with settings for months trying to get the display on the TV to show movies played from the PC in Fullscreen Widescreen. (WS DVD's)
The best I can seem to get is a letterboxed movie when the TV is in 4:3 mode. When watching Cable, I can always switch to "zoom 1" and have a non-HD letterboxed movie go to full screen WS. With the VGA connection on the TV, my only display options on the TV are 16:9 & 4:3.

What am I missing? I know there has to be something simple somewhere. I've tried DualView/Clone settings. I've tried making the TV the primary display. Tried many different display settings. If I burn the DVD it plays fine. There are many times I'd rather just watch it from the PC and there really no reason it shouldn't play fullscreen...is there?

Software used have been Media Player, PowerDVD, WinDVD, & Nero Showtime.

Now I also have a problem with all video played on my PC looking milky but the video on the TV looks fine.

any ideas here?

[YOGIx213]

Do you have your PC resolution set to 852 x 480? It's not a standard resolution and you will have to download powerstrip to get that. Once you have that installed, set up a custom resolution to 852 x 480 and see if that helps. I haven't run any movies from my PC to my EDTV yet, I watch movies from my external DVD player but I play games on my EDTV every now and then. I I have it on single display mode and switch between monitors (my 17" LCD and the 37" EDTV) depending on what I want to do. Using powerstrip, I'm able to have 852 x 480 for my EDTV and when I switch back to the LCD, it automatically switches back to 1280 x 1024. I'll try to run a movie from my PC to my EDTV though when I get home from work and see if I run into any problems.

[YOGIx213]

Just wanted to update on this. I played a DVD (Unforgiven) on my PC with Power DVD. I also had powerstrip running with the EDTV native res of 852 x 480 and it played it perfectly.

[TAZ420]

currently my desktop is 1024x768 and my TV in DualView is 1280x720.

Would there be any way to keep my PC at 1024x768 while still being able to view movies correctly on the TV?

In the mean time I'll look for Powerstrip and give it a try

[YOGIx213]

I don't think you will get good quality picture with the resolution at 1024x768. The native resolution for an EDTV is 852 x 480 so I would try that out and see if that makes a difference.

[TAZ420]

according to the manual for the TV, 852(WVGA)x480 is a valid resolution but when setting the resolution with Powerstrip or through the Nvidia settings, the closest I can get is 848x480. Even through Nvidia settings, if I try to create a custom resolution of 852x480, it says it's invalid. The TV is identified correctly through plug-n-play though. Not sure why the numbers are off a little.

Anyways...having the desktop at 1024x768 & TV at 848x480 OR the desktop and TV both at 848x480 still won't give me a full screen widescreen movie on the TV. I get a stretched picture with bars at the top and bottom.

I've been testing with a store bought WS DVD that when played on the standalone DVD player displays correctly.

I've also checked the settings in the DVD player software and tried various things with the aspect ratio and still can't get the (can we swear here?) thing to work right!

I'm beginning to think I could get the computer to walk around my apt before it'll play a movie correctly :D

[YOGIx213]

That's all I could think of at the moment, you might want to check out this forum as they have threads and threads about home pc centers. Just go there and do a search and you might be lucky and find what you're looking for.

http://www.avforums.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=46