One of the hidden features in Update Rollup 2 for Media Center Edition 2005 is an addition to the Zoom menu. When you’re watching a standard-definition broadcast (4:3 image ration) on a 16:9 display, the Zoom button gives you different ways to use the full screen. You access the Zoom menu by pressing the More Info button, selecting Zoom from the pop-up menu, and then pressing OK to cycle through the options.
Option 1 is the standard 4:3 display; 2 zooms the whole image so its fills the full width, cutting off the top and bottom of the image; 3 stretches the image to the full width, distorting faces and bodies but not cutting off any information.
New in Update Rollup 2 is Option 4, which stretches the image on the right and left but leaves it mostly unchanged in the center. Many high-end TVs have a similar option, and it’s good to see it appear here.
I don’t particularly like options 2 and 3, both of which alter the screen unacceptably for my taste. The new option is more appealing, as this example shows.
It looks good on my Dell wide-screen 2005FPW monitor. Except… This option, unlike any of the others, results in a herky-jerky motion to live and recorded video. The effect is like watching an old silent film, and it’s distracting, to say the least. As soon as I switch back to any of the other three Zoom modes, the normal motion resumes.
I don’t think this is resource-related - this PC has a 3GHz CPU and 1GB of RAM. Anyone else seeing this behavior?
Update: After a brief back-and-forth with me via e-mail, Charlie Owen of Microsoft zeroed in on the problem. The onboard ATI 9100 video on my Shuttle ST61G4 system doesn’t have enough processing power (that’s GPU, not CPU), to handle the demands of the new Zoom mode. Fortunately, there’s one empty slot in this system, so it might be time to upgrade.
If you’re seeing similar problems (as at least one commenter has already noted), check your video subsystem and see if it’s up to the task.
5 comments ↓
Ed, I’ve got the Dell 2405 widescreen monitor and use Zoom Mode 4 all the time with absolutely no problem. I’ve forwarded your post to the team to see if we can figure out why this is happening on your setup.
I have the 2005FPW also and mine is herky-jerky in Zoom Mode 4, too. I don’t have a real high end video card, but it does just fine with the other zoom modes. Zoom Mode 4 would be great if the motion were fluid like the other modes. Until MS fixes the issue, I guess I’ll have to stick with the others. Too bad…
I have a 3.4GHz CPU with 1GB or RAM. I updated to the latest ATI drives in hopes of finding a cure, but no luck.
Hmmm…zoom 4 works just fine in my setup. I have a Radeon 9600PRO going into a Panasonic plasma through VGA (running on a home-built HTPC running a Athlon64 3000+). Zoom 4 is awesome, but I wish MCE could autodetect the input source aspect and switch accordingly. I find myself wondering why my HD channels look so bad until I realize I haven’t gone back to zoom 1 for them.
Several users on the newsgroups are having major issues with the Rollup 2 and not just on the Zoom 4. I have the issue using any zoom at this point. I have updated to the latest Nvidia decoders for my tuner card and video card. I am also getting pixeling of peoples heads during news casts etc.
I have a AMD 64 3000+
NVTV
GeForce 6200
1 Gig of RAM
I am about to rollback (this evening) to see if the video returns to normal.
Mark
I have a Dell XPS 600 3.2GHz duel core Extreme Edition CPU, 2 GB RAM, Nvidia 6800 GPU with 256 built in memory and a 2005FPW, Angel Duel TV Tuner, Media Center Edition 2005 with SP2 OEM cd. I just started having the same problems after a disk format and re-install. I cant even see my cursor in Media Center unless I move it very quickly. Also I get “App. has generated an exception everytime I open MC. I just posted in another thread about missing MPEG2 decoders. Although I think it might just be a bad install job??? by me OOPS! I wonder if its just a driver conflict with old drivers and newer drivers among different devices. I know that Nvidia has drivers just for the Gforce 6800 and a driver pack souly for Media Center PC’s running various graphics cards. just confused I guess. thanks
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