Hi,
My old Panasonic TH-42PV60 has a resolution of 1024x768 (XGA) and supports the following formats; 480p, 576p, 720p, 1080i.
My question is. What would be the best resolution that rasplex supports for this TV. As I understand you should try to have one-to-one picel mapping to avoid blurring, but is this possible on a XGA TV?
I can see that I could select 1024x768 60Hz by setting:
hdmi_group=2
hdmi_mode=16
but what is the best setting that rasplex support for this TV?
hdmi_mode=16 should do it
But I dont know what would happen to the interface as the skins are designed for 720p
anyway having more pixels than what the TV can handle will result on a supersampling anti-aliasing which it isn´t that bad. Yes, you could notice some blur, but only on the typography used and not really on the video. It only becomes a hurdle if you have a very small font on some menus
But 1024x768 is not working, results in black screen. I suppose it’s not supported since it’s not listed in the possible resolutions in rasplex settings. So I’m stuck at 720p (hdmi_group=1, hdmi_mode=4).
But if it is as you say that supersampling isn’t that bad I have to supersample from 1080p? Because 720p has a lower vertical resolution than XGA (768). So would it be better to let the TV supersample from 1080p or will I only put unnecessary load on the rPI 2?
well, yes
but XGA is 4:3 so you aren´t going to really use those extra vertical pixels if you are watching things with black bars and at a certain point it also depends on the content you are feeding it. But the rpi can handle it without any problem.
720p will be closer to your definition and the downsampling from 1080p content to 720p will be handled by the Pi and 720p to XGA by your TV
1080p to XGA will be all handled by the TV, which you will have to try if results on a better image quality
None of the resolutions are better than the other but at 1080p, every 2 pixels in a 1920 horizontal resolution will turn “almost” into 1 pixel so that should give your a crisper image than 720p. I can´t do the same calculation with the vertical resolution as you should get blackbars for most content so a lot of space isn´t really used.
Anyway I should look to use rasplex on an XGA projector I have around and let you know. Maybe with a XGA skin it could work but I don´t really know.
Doesn’t Plex require a 16:9 display?
I recall with my early testing on my Raspberry Pi I was having issues because my bench monitor wasn’t widescreen. Nothing would appear on the display with PMP (like your black screen symptom). I ultimately had to connect to a widescreen monitor and it was fine. I think Rasplex might be the same way.
You might be SOL w/ a 4:3 display.
The thing is that these old Panasonic plasma screens have a 16:9 aspect but with XGA resolution. They accomplish this by having rectangular and not square pixels.
When running on 720p or 1080p, overscan is a big problem forcing me to calibrate making the blurring even worse. What I really would like to accomplish is to make rasplex run in XGA resolution with a vertically stretched picture as this would be the ultimate resolution for the TV, but I haven’t figured out how to accomplish this with rasplex.
The pi can be configured to run this resolution in 16:9 by setting:
#hdmi_cvt=
#aspect ratio 1=4:3, 2=14:9, 3=16:9, 4=5:4, 5=16:10, 6=15:9
hdmi_cvt=1024 768 60 3
hdmi_group=2
hdmi_mode=87
hdmi_drive=2
But rasplex dosen’t seem to run in this resolution resulting in black screen.
1024x768 is 4:3, regardless of the physical dimensions of the TV. It’s not 16:9, period, and I’m pretty certain RasPlex doesn’t like 4:3 although the Pi in general is fine with it. It’s a software issue with RasPlex as far as I know until someone chimes in otherwise.
Ok I have tested it now that im back at work and made it boot on XGA
use this on the config file
hdmi_mode=16 H
The H means 16:9 variant (of a normally 4:3 mode).
This will output at XGA but on 16:9 format and the GUI will work and will use the native rectangular pixels of your TV
You can check all options here http://elinux.org/RPiconfig
