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[lalittle]

The Theater View setting in MC11 is still not designed with a proper amount of overscan in mind.  The text on the Theater View screen goes well into the area of the screen that is NOT designed to be seen on a TV monitor.  If you adjust the graphics card's settings so that you can see all of the Theater View screen, the image will NOT be calibrated properly for viewing NTSC or ATSC sources (like DVDs.)  In other words, you have to calibrate the graphics card/TV monitor incorrectly in order to get Theater View to display properly.

This was an issue with MC10, and to solve it I ended up editing the skins, moving all the text in from the edges of the screen by an appropriate amount.  This took quite a bit of time and trial and error for me, and I really don't want to go through all this again with this new version of MC.

The bottom line is that "Theater View" is designed for displaying the image on a TV monitor (either NTSC or ATSC) which is designed with a small amount of overscan in mind -- i.e. the edges of the screen (about 4 to 5 percent) are intended to NOT be seen on TV displays.  Theater View should take this into account, or it loses it's usefulness.

Is it possible that this will be addressed with MC11?  I thought that after the discussions on this topic with MC10, it would be address with version 11.  I ended up getting requests to send my edited Theater View skins to a few other people (which I did), so there are definitely others interested in this.

Thanks,

Larry

[Cindy_B]

I totally agree....  I have adjusted the display on my TV monitor via RADEON 9600 settings to remove the borders on the screen left side.  At ATI's maximum adjustment point, MC still shows a black left boarder when displaying videos.   

This is showing up on video's created using the following:

Video capture with Adobe Premiere
TSUNAMI MPEG products

I'm using TSUNAM mpeg-1 defaults settings.

[lalittle]

Thanks for the reply.

The Theater View skins should be designed so that if you cut about 5% of the edges off, the text will still be "comfortably" withing the edges of the screen.  NTSC and ATSC monitors are designed to be calibrated with about 5% overscan (i.e. so that 5% of the edges are cut off), and it is these monitors that Theater View is designed to work on.

It's frustrating that the Theater View skins are not desinged to be viewed on the monitors for which the skins are made for.  Whoever designed these skins designed them for a computer monitor, which is NOT where they are intended to be used.

Larry

[Rob L]

Well, you say that, but NTSC really is far from being the only way people are going to be using it. It's not even an international standard after all :-)

And particularly now - are most people really using theater view with TV out connections? Surely it's increasingly likely that people are going to be using something like a VGA or DVI connection from their PC given the number of TVs that have them these days...

[lalittle]

Well, you say that, but NTSC really is far from being the only way people are going to be using it. It's not even an international standard after all :-)

But this doesn't just apply to NTSC.  All TV display formats are designed to utilize some amount of overscan -- NTSC, PAL, as well as ALL of the ATSC HD formats.

And particularly now - are most people really using theater view with TV out connections? Surely it's increasingly likely that people are going to be using something like a VGA or DVI connection from their PC given the number of TVs that have them these days...

It has nothing to do with the connection format -- it's an inherent design consideration for displaying images on TV's as opposed to computer monitors.  It doesn't matter if people use VGA, DVI, HDMI, S-Video, Composite, Component, etc.  ALL of these are designed to utilize overscan and have the edges of the image cut off by a small amount -- it's part of the design.  The ONLY display format that is NOT designed to use overscan is a computer monitor, which is not a "Theater" device.  It makes no sense to create a function specifically targeted at "Theaters" (i.e. TV monitors as opposed to computer monitors) and NOT take overscan into account.

I think that there are probably a lot more people using Theater View on TV monitors of some sort, so this would most likely help the majority of Theater View users.

Keep in mind also that if the Theater View display took overscan into account, EVERYBODY would still be able to use it.  The people who want to use Theater View on a computer monitor would simply have a little extra space around the edges of the screen, which is far less of a problem compared to the way it is now, where it is simply not useable on a properly calibrated system due to the fact that important information is cut off.

To NOT take overscan into account, on the other hand, means that anybody who wants to use Theater View with a TV monitor will have to MIScalibrate the graphics card output.

I think

[glynor]

I've got to agree with Lalittle here.  The skins are the "10 foot design" and are clearly designed for use on non-standard monitors (or should be).  It so happens, that my Video Card and TV combination don't suffer from this problem, but I know it is an issue that applies to the vast majority of televisions in varying degrees (whether NTSC or PAL, HD or SD).  Just as DVD Menu systems need to be designed taking account of maximum overscan (most DVD Layout programs can overlay a Title Safe and Action Safe area), Theater View Skins need to address this as well...

That being said ... Can lalittle use the skin that was already modified for MC10 with 11?  If so, that'd give you a workaround until the issue can be addressed (and it might be a bit late in the game for MC11, but who knows?)...

[lalittle]

I've got to agree with Lalittle here.

Thanks for posting.  If enough people would comment about this, I think it would be taken care of much quicker.

Just as DVD Menu systems need to be designed taking account of maximum overscan (most DVD Layout programs can overlay a Title Safe and Action Safe area), Theater View Skins need to address this as well...

EXACTLY.  That's a good analogy.  DVD menus are ALWAYS designed to take overscan into account, and the Theater View skins should as well since they're designed primarily for the same displays.   It would seem that the people who designed the Theater View skins simply were not aware of their intended viewing application.

it might be a bit late in the game for MC11, but who knows?)...

I sure hope not.  When I brought this up before, it was "a little late in the game for MC10."  I would hope to not have to wait for TWO full version releases for this to be addressed.

Larry

[IlPadrino]

Yeah, what lalittle said.

[JONCAT]

Seems rather counterintuitive to have Theare View skins that aren't compatible with certain sets.

What exactly are you using Glynor that works w/o a hitch?

I'll be adding a 37" LCD via DVI and the last thing I want to see after I hook up my entire system (in our new house) is a whacky theatre view. I can't wait to use it but now I am a little apprehensive.

Hope this can get some investigation; thanks for bringing it  to our attention Lalittle.

JC

[lalittle]

Seems rather counterintuitive to have Theare View skins that aren't compatible with certain sets.

I agree.  The Theater View skins are designed to work with computer monitors, NOT TV monitors, which results in important parts of the skin being cut off when viewed in TV monitors.  If it was designed the OTHER way around, the skins would work on ANY monitor -- the text and buttons would simply be set in a little extra on computer monitors.

I'll be adding a 37" LCD via DVI and the last thing I want to see after I hook up my entire system (in our new house) is a whacky theatre view.

With the TV and graphics card "properly" calibrated (using the correct amount of overscan) some fo the text will be cut off around the edges of the screen.  To compensate for this, you can use the computer's display setup to manually eliminate overscan, but this will mean that things like DVDs played on your computer will not be displayed as they were intended.  It also means that if the TV is slightly miscalibrated, you may end up seeing off the edge of the skin in one direction in order to see the full skin in the other direction (i.e. in order to see the full skin vertically, you may end up seeing off the edges of the skin horizontally, which looks ugly.  This is the point of overscan and "title safe" and "action safe" boundaries.  If the skins only used the action safe area (or a little bit inside this) for the text and buttons, this wouldn't be a problem.

I can't wait to use it but now I am a little apprehensive.

It "can" be fixed -- it's just not easy for someone like me who isn't familiar with xml editing.  As I mentioned above, I edited a skin for MC10 so this was no longer an issue, but I don't think these will work with the MC11 since the layout is a little different.  I just don't have time to do it again, but if someone like me (who had never had ANY experience with editing an xml file) can do it, I'd think that an experienced person could do it fairly easily.

Hope this can get some investigation; thanks for bringing it  to our attention Lalittle.

Thanks to all of you guys who took the time to support this issue here.

Larry

[glynor]

What exactly are you using Glynor that works w/o a hitch?

I have a Panasonic 37" TV (nothing too special about it ... its an older model) and an ATI AIW x800XT.  It is hooked up to the TV using the AIW's S-Video Out, and the TV is set as the video card's "primary display" (I have a small monitor attached as well set as secondary mirrored).

I suppose I shouldn't have said I don't suffer from the problem at all, because I sort of do...  I just don't have my TV size calibrated "properly".  This isn't a huge problem for me though because I only ever use my TV connected to the HTPC (all of my TV equipment runs through the PC) and I rarely use DVD's without converting them to XviD mpeg4's first.  I just set my display size using the ATI control panel to not overscan any of the usable desktop area.

[lalittle]

I suppose I shouldn't have said I don't suffer from the problem at all, because I sort of do... 

I figured that this is what you meant.  You luckily have a TV that overscans "evenly" (i.e the amount of overscan is exactly the same horizontally and vertically.)  If this wasn't the case (which it often isn't) you could have had the problem I described above where after getting one direction to completely fit on the screen, you end up seeing beyond the borders of the image in the other direction.  Most graphics cards do not allow seperate qadjustments for vertical and horizontal "size" -- they typically just have a single up/down size adjustment, and horizontal and vertical "position" adjustment.  This means that you cannot compensate for this problem.

Also, when you watch DVDs, you are technically not seeing the image as intended -- you are seeing into the overscan area of the image.  This won't "always" be a problem, but with some material it will.

The best solution is to simply design the skins to allow for normal overscan, just as you would design a DVD menu.

Larry

[JONCAT]

Heck, I'd give this a try but I am XML ignorant. I may have a friend who would dive into this.

Anyway you can extrapolate some info/guidance from your MC10 experience. Also, I assume your posts in this thread will be a good starting point to explain what is needed.

Any more details that will help out fearless XML  adventurer?

JC

[lalittle]

Heck, I'd give this a try but I am XML ignorant.

As was I when I edited the MC10 skin.   I had no programming knowledge -- I just did everything via trial and error (i.e. change a parameter, see what happens, change it the other way, see what happens, etc.)  This is why I said that for a more experienced person, I would imagine this would be fairly straight forward.  All that needs to be done is to move everything in from the edges a little.  There are examples on the web of "action safe" and "title safe" boundaries, such as on this site:

http://www2.hawaii.edu/~ghoeffke/video_basics/rules_of_editing1.htm

Programs such as Photoshop offer this information as well.  The idea is to keep the "important" items far enough from the edges of the screen that they don't get cut off by the overscan boundaries.  In this case, keeping the Theater View information a little bit inside the action safe area should work fine.

Larry

[JONCAT]

Just moved....check back for an update once I get the PC setup and take a look at this.


JC