G400 max, WSS (Widescreen) Signal

[danbe]

I have a widescreen TV, and I'm using the DVDMax feature on my G400 max quite extensively. Everything is working quite alright, however I have to manually set my TV to Widescreen mode, whereas (some) other gfx cards, as well as my standalone dvd player output a Widescreen (WSS) signal, causing the TV to automatically switch to Widescreen mode...

My question is of course - can the G400 output a WSS signal? If so, is this implemented in some of the later drivers (it's been a while since I upgraded), or are there any other (3rd party) utilities which could achieve this?

Thanks for your help,
/Daniel

[dZeus]

did you hook up your standalone DVD player through scart? There's one pin on the SCART plug which defines wether the signal has 4:3 or 16:9 aspect ratio. The G400 however doesn't provide any extra signals other than the video signal to the television.

Another method is through one of the display lines (at least for PAL), which will tell the aspect ratio of the signal being received. I'm not sure that this also has been defined for the NTSC format, and if it has, I doubt it will ever be implemented for the G400 (or wether it technically even could be implemented) (end of life regarding new driver features?)

[danbe]

Yes, I did hook it up through scart. However, it's through a generic S-Video to Scart adapter (my dvd player has an s-video output). So the extra pin isn't used there.

Just thought I'd ask, as I know that at least some of the GeForce cards have this possibility, so I thought it at least might be possible on the G400 (and maybe it is, even though it isn't implemented (yet ) ).

Well well, it's really not that important, just thought it'd be a nice feature.

[dZeus]

Ah I found the info on the WSS line in the PAL format:

http://tallyho.bc.nu/~steve/palplus.html#wss

elsewhere I've read that it's a PAL-only thing though, meaning that NTSC-only TVs probably won't process it. (Just like NTSC-only TVs aren't fit with SCART sockets).

So... that limits the coverage of this feature, making chances of actual implementation close to zero I guess

[danbe]

Well, no, actually it seems to be possible both for PAL and NTSC. It's just different lines that are used for PAL and NTSC (line 23 for PAL, lines 20 and 283 for NTSC).

See this page (pdf document) for more info:

http://www.intersil.com/data/an/an9/an9716/an9716.pdf

So it seems it'd definately be possible to implement this both for NTSC and PAL.

If Matrox would be willing to do it is another question, of course.

[dZeus]

ah, sorry, I wasn't clear in my post:
what I read was that most NTSC tv sets don't have this detection implemented (regardless the signal specifications for it).

I'm not sure if the info I read about this was completely reliable though.

[danbe]

I received the following reply from Matrox customer support:

"Dear Customer, unfortunatly that isn´t possible with the hardware. "

I guess that's the end of the matter

Still good to know, although it wasn't the answer I was hoping for.

[dZeus]

well did you imply it was a problem? I mean, it's clearly a feature request.

Perhaps even interesting for the Parhelia or future products?

[danbe]

I did in fact ask them about Parhelia, and also told them it'd be a nice feature in future cards. I got a reply saying that it wasn't possible with any of their cards, but they'd pass the request on to the developers.

However, today I got a new mail:

"sorry, I gave you the wrong information. Since Parhelia, it´s possible to
give out in 16:9"


Doesn't help me with my G400, but at least now we know.