Htpc => crt tv

[will101]

Currently I'm getting a reasonable picture on my widescreen CRT TV using 720x576 resolution. However, when I install the latest ATI graphics driver I get a horizontal sleet effect and have to revert to last known good configuration to get the display back.

I have a 785G mobo but am using a discrete 3450 512MB card as my TV has no VGA/DVI/HDMI inputs so have to use the s-video output of the discrete card and disable the integrated graphics for now.

I noticed the current refresh rate is 25Hz interlaced. PAL is 50i but there seems to be no easy way to change the refresh rate to anything other than 25i. In the Windows resolution dialogue window, going to the advanced display option and looking at the list of supported modes only shows resolutions at 25i. Catalyst Control Centre has no truly advanced options that I have found - no way of creating a custom resolution/refresh rate or manually adjusting overscan for example.

Is there a widescreen PAL resolution/refresh rate or does s-video only support the 4:3 aspect ratio?

Is there a configuration option/tool/GUI in CCC or windows that allows altering the overscan/resolution/refresh rate parameters that CCC & Windows Media Centre do automatically when you tell them you are connecting to a CRT TV (via s-video in Media Centre's case)?

A side but related issue I am having is that the overscan settings are not being implemented when resuming from standby into Media Centre. That's what comes from installing manufacturers device drivers instead of leaving well alone when all features were working fine with a clean install of Windows 7...

[Salazaar]

Powerstrip may be helpful in this case. You can customise all sorts of settings and resolutions with it.

http://entechtaiwan.com/util/ps.shtm

[will101]

Although PowerStrip might be the easiest solution I like to keep the number of applications performing the same (or similar) role to a minimum.

Windows Media Centre and CCC are automatically applying refresh rate/overscan settings already. There must be a way to access these settings?

With NVidia's control panel it was easy to create a custom resolution/refresh rate. In the handful of months since I switched to ATI for the first time I've yet to get Catalyst Control Centre to do anything particularly useful. Is there a secret button somewhere that lets you access the more advanced features??? How about loading a graphics profile when I launch a game? The ATI way seems to be that it launches the game when you load a profile but it's not very clear so I haven't bothered trying...

[ash_rm]

You want to try using RGB Scart if possible, should give a lot better picture quality and you should be able to sort out a widescreen resolution.