Sean Oneil
Forum Replies Created
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I was trying to help, not be condecending. I don’t exactly have a copy of your resume here. And I didn’t know you already hired someone.
There is a handshake between a DVI source and DVI display that you’re not understanding here. This is not an insult. Very few people understand it. I hardly understand it myself. So what is happening is that it seems your plasma thinks a computer signal must always be displayed at 4:3 so it is adding the pillarbox. But this sounds a problem with your display’s EDID – it is most likely not the Mac’s problem. I really don’t know. More info would be helpful. What happens when you plug it into a Windows PC? Does it do the same thing?
If I had your same model plasma, I’d be able to tell you more. Unfortunately you’ll be lucky if anyone here has the same one and knows about this stuff. Even though I don’t have it, I’d bet a lot of money that if you get an HDLink and feed the monitor a true 720p video signal (not a computer signal), it will map the image on the center of the grid, also called “centered output”. The excess 48 lines is so thin, they will be hidden within the overscan range. So you won’t see it. This way, you will be filling the entire screen AND there will be no scaling involved by either the monitor or the computer.
Scaling it to 15:9 in FCP is not a good way to go about it whatsoever. Even if it works, it’s still not the right way to do it. If you have no other choice but to plug the monitor directly into the Mac’s DVI, then you’re probably out of luck. You may wish to try something like SwitchRes (do a Google search). It may be able to change the DVI signal so that your monitor thinks it’s 720p video instead of a 4:3 computer desktop. If that does work, you want to set Final Cut to 720p, not change it to 15:9 because your monitor almost certainly handles 720p properly.
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[Bear Baker] “However, when the image plays out the monitor vertically squeezes the image down to a 16:9 frame during playback.”
Ok, I think I understand what’s going on. This is very complicated stuff.
Final cut pro is not going to scale your video to 15:9 during playback, and for good reasons. Using Cinema Desktop mode, it will add black lines to fill the resolution while maintaining the proper aspect ratio (16:9). So if the computer’s resolution is 1280×768, Final Cut will add the extra 48 lines of black to maintain a proper image size.
Basically, you can either have a 1:1 centered output with black bars making up the difference, or you can have your monitor scale it to fill the screen. You can’t have both. Just like you can’t get a suntan in the middle of the night.
To make matters worse, your not going to get your monitor to do what you want if it think you’re looking at a computer desktop instead of video.
There’s a DVI handshake involved. Basically, the Mac is telling the plasma “Hey, I’m computer, not a DVD player”. It thinks that because… it is a computer. Imagine that? The plasma has been designed to react accordingly when it sees this and performs “underscan correction”. That way, you can see the Apple menu and all your desktop icons – they won’t be hidden in the overscan area. However, you certainly don’t want this when playing back video.
So in case you didn’t figure it out, you don’t want your plasma acting as a computer monitor. Even if you change your resolution to 1280×720, the plasma is still going to act as a computer monitor and you won’t get a true 720p playback.
What you want is the HDLink by Blackmagic (or a similar product). This way you will be feeding it a REAL video signal (not a computer signal) and your TV will treat it as such. You won’t have nasty underscan scaling, and the plasma should do a centered output of 720p so you’ll get 1:1 pixel mapping (meaning that the plasma does not perform any scaling). There will be a very thin black line on the top and bottom – but since it’s so small you won’t even see it because it will reside in the overscan area.
If none of this makes sense, I’d hire a professional installer familiar with pro video equipment.
Sean
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You haven’t provided enough information for anyone to really help you, and I apologize, but some of what you said doesn’t make any sense. You’re connecting the plasma to the Mac’s DVI output. So why would a capture card have anything to do with it? And are you saying you have a Kona and a Decklink installed on the same machine?
Anyways, I’ll take a guess at what you’re trying to do. You want the Mac to scale your video to 1280×768, so you can achieve “1:1” pixel mapping without any black bars.
If this is what you’re trying to do, then you’re going about it all wrong. Please provide more info and I can help you out.
Sean
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A PC formatted FAT32 drive is not a good idea on a Mac for what you’re doing. There’s a max file size of 2GB I believe, and a FAT32 partition cannot be larger than 137GB.
The best solution is to use Gigabit Ethernet. Just share your PC drives over the network and the Mac can mount them. It’s also faster than Firewire.
But if you need firewire for transporting, there are programs for the PC to read Mac formatted HFS drives. The one I use is called MacDrive and it works great. Another one is MacDisk. They’re cheap, like under $50.
Sean
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It just MIGHT have been pertinent to post the meaning of the article, instead of just the sensational sounding headline:
“…and will instead offer free technology that lets people play Windows Media files using Apple’s own software.”
Sean
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I have the same issue but I only see it on unrendered effects.
Sean
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Nevermind. False alarm. Our dealer screwed us. The reciept says 2.3GHz and we didn’t discover until now that it is a 2.0 w/o PCI-X. Getting a replacement now. Terrible coincedence that I discovered it right after the 10.4.4 update.
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No I plugged it directly into an SDI monitor and the same thing occurs.
I have a PCI-X Mac. This isn’t an issue. The card used to run fine in it.
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Sebastion, did you do the 10.4.4 upgrade? That’s the only thing that could explain this on my end.
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I can’t believe how fast this rumor has spread. It amazes me how void so many people here are of critical thinking when it comes to this kind of thing. How can an LCD monitor cause dropped frames? It makes zero sense.
My Apple 23″ is loaded with problems. Burn-in problems, color balance problems.
The two 24″ Dell monitors at my place are flawless. Absolutely flawless. They also have more inputs, they’re bigger, the picture is better, and there’s a height adjustable stand. And they cost less.