Xenarc Installed-Distorted DVD picture

rdiggidy · 01-10-2006, 02:39 AM

Hardware:

VIA EPIA M1000 (Using onboard video)
Xenarc 700TSV 7"
15’ VGA Cable (thought it was very high quality…maybe not?) You can see exact model and specs of VGA cable here: http://www.computerbrain.com/applica....asp?sku=28003

Good news:

Got my carpc in the car tonight Still lots to work on but went in pretty smooth!

Bad news:

Only problems came when I was testing a DVD. It played fine, but the picture isn’t DVD quality. The dark colors look kind of shadowy and almost metallic (little bit hard to explain). Though the picture is pretty good, and when there are no dark spots in a frame you can’t tell anything is wrong, but when you do get a dark scene it has enough distortion in the color to be quite bothersome.

Applications seem to look normal (though most all applications are bright happy colors).

To try to find out if the problem was related to my DVD player or the onboard graphics card I hooked my laptop up to the 15’ VGA cable and got the same thing. Desktop and everything looks great, movie still has that metallic/too dark look.

If it matters I have the same DVD program on both my laptop and the carputer it’s an old old version of WinDVD (v2.3 I think). So I don’t know if there is any chance that could be an issue or not? (Though DVD's on my laptop screen look fine)

Thoughts? I was under the impression that VGA was suppose to be good to about 20 feet? Would you initially assume that the long VGA cable is causing the DVD problems?

Tomorrow I’m going to try some more troubleshooting, but wondered if anyone could recognize these symptoms right of the bat or had experienced something similar.

Thanks for the help!

rdiggidy · 01-10-2006, 11:18 PM

I hooked the Xenarc right up to my laptop and played a DVD off my laptop with the same look/effect. The DVD looks OK, but it is noticable that all dark things are kind of metallic and distorted.

I'm not sure exactly what to try next, since it doesn't seem to be the long VGA cable.

Thoughts? Maybe I'll try hooking up a DVD player via RCA cable and see what that looks like.

When I start up the Xenarc it shows in a little blue box:

1024x768 60hz

Though when I go to properties--->Settings it shows the resolution of the video card at 800x600.

Is that normal? Shouldn't those two match? Could that be related?

rdiggidy · 01-11-2006, 03:34 PM

Tested with RCA input DVD player. Picture is fine.

Not sure where to go from here. I guess I'll pull it out and bring it in, see if hooking it up to my desktop produces any different results?

Vinister · 01-11-2006, 03:39 PM

its because the screen is reproducing your laptop's resolution on its panel, and it's not that good at it.

The xenarc is 800x480 native resolution, meaning if you send it an 800x480 signal it will look as good as it can. However, any other resolution gets converted into 800x480 inside the screen. This conversion process is likely what is altering your picture.

I have the same problem. In reality, the screens arent very good imho. But theyre better than any of the competition. I really wish some manufacturer would make us a proper, daylight-bright, transflective, 800x600 touchscreen display... but its not likely to ever happen.

vin

rdiggidy · 01-12-2006, 03:08 AM

Vinster thanks for the reply!

I found out the information you gave earlier today and have spent a ton of time reading dead in threads about how to get the "holy grail of 800x480".

Well not only did I not achieve that, but I've taken steps backwards

My disply now only fills up about 2/3 of the xenarc screen. I updated bios and try to update drivers, but it's not working.

I tried updating the drivers probably 5 times. I have installed and unistalled them in every combination I can think of. When I intall them it looks like they install, asks for a restart and then after the restart when I go to see what driver version I have it still says the same version and the displayed image by the computer is only taking up 2/3 of the screen.

I've got to get to bed and work on this tommorow.

But this is really ****ing me off. All I wanted was 800x600 and couldn't even get that.

Actually I have 1 other question. With a probably functioning Via M1000 and Xenarc, when you set the screen resolution to 800x600 will the Xenarc recognize this and display it in the little blue box (right now in the little blue box it says 1024x768 60hz even though the computer says it's at 800x600). Or will it still say 1024x768 even though it's set at 800x600?

cell21633 · 01-12-2006, 08:58 PM

hmm..what colorspace are you using? i've had huge differences in picture quality depending which colorspace is being used. i don't own the M10K, so i don't know what it supports natively.

rdiggidy · 01-12-2006, 09:18 PM

I'm not familiar with the term "colorspace" so I guess I don't know which one I'm using.

The native resolution of the Xenarc is 800x480 which (I just recently found out) is currently unachievable by the m1000.