Media Center PC Software and Overscan

[robjv1]

I am thinking of building a MPC and one of the things I would like to do with it is access my huge VHS --> DVD rips on a hard drive from the MPC. I have noticed though when I've hooked my current PC and video card up to my TV, the overscan is visible, which is a problem because of the head switching noise at the bottom of the VHS captures. Now I know I could probably adjust the overscan on my television (Sony XBR 970) but I was hoping that certain video cards and/or software packages were already setup or tweakable to compensate for this, saving me the trouble of adjusting the television in the service menu. I'm interested in SageTV as far as software so far, but really I am at the beginning stages of this and am pretty flexible.

I have one other question -- and this will surely sound strange, but I was wondering if there is any capacity of any of these programs to play video streams off an external HD as if they were channels in a programming guide. My dilemma is that when presented with too many choices for things to watch, I never end up picking something and I think it would be really cool if I could just be flipping through channels and have it integrate my HD content into that process so that I could just "flip" onto it, and it would start from a random spot in a particular video stream, joining the stream "in progress," if you will. Also are there many programs on here that support DVD-Video file structures or do they typically run better if you have them as .MPG files?

Thanks!

[fritzi93]

As to overscan, my HTPC is hooked up to a 42" 720p set, and I compensated within the video card's settings. (ATI 1650pro). The TV was detected as an HDTV and I set it to that mode/resolution and adjusted overscan there. Easy. Dunno about recent nVidia cards, but I suppose the better, newer ones would behave similarly.

MPCHC and VLC are both good choices for playing videos on your HTPC and can play DVD files, DVD_Video as ISOs, and whatever you have codecs and files for.. (I use MPCHC).

Can't help you with random/shuffle play, never had an interest in it. Good luck.

[guns1inger]

How are you connected to your TV ? Analogue or HDMI should have overscan. VGA will not have overscan.

[fritzi93]

Hell, that slipped my mind entirely! :P Of course. My card has DVI-out, and a DVI to HDMI adapter connects it to the set. Really, if you can, it would be best to get a card with DVI, so you can go DVI -> HDMI. Mine has two.

[robjv1]

My current card has DVI-out as well and I used a DVI to HDMI cable. So I will just have to make sure I buy a card that will let me compensate for overscan, good enough! I would guess that most cards do, especially those most often used for HTPCs.

My other concern is related to deinterlacing. When I watch my VHS->DVD stuff on a DVD player hooked up to my TV it looks great. When I watch them on a computer, they look weird, except in PowerDVD. When I play them in VLC player, I use the the bob filter usually and it does the best job, but still not great. Then again, since my HTPC will be hooked up to a CRT HDTV and not this LCD where I've tested those functions, it might not matter.