I've just set up XBMCbuntu on a PC with an NVidia GT520M. It's plugged into a Denon AV amp, along with my cable box, and the Denon outputs to my TV, all HDMI.
I've adjusted the TV settings so that the Cable picture looks excellent. The XBMC picture is not so great - whites are too bright, and darks are too dark. I can play with the XBMC brightness and see plenty of details in either, but never both at the same time.
I exited XBMC and logged in to XBMCbunut and ran nvidia-settings to adjust the Gamma, and saved the ~/.nvidia-settings-rc. But I can not get these settings to be applied when XBMC is running. No matter what I set for gamma values, the XBMC picture is not changed. I see no indication - log, etc - that the settings where applied.
From my research, this seems to be because booting into XBMC does not run a window manager, but correct me if I'm wrong. I have tried using .xinitrc to run nvidia-settings --load-config-only, but again I get no indication that this worked.
What is the correct way to apply the .nvidia-settings-rc to the XBMC session in XBMCbuntu?
[SOLVED - Well, a not-so-desirable workaround to my true problem...]
Solved by enabling Settings... Video... Playback... VDPAU Studio level color conversion
This didn't solve my original question about setting gamma, but - even better - solved my original problem with too-bright whites and too-black darks.
I can now see differences in all levels of a 40-step grey-level calibration video. I can't tell the difference between the 99% and 100% whites, but the 1% and 2% are very clear so I probably just need to adjust the TV a little better.
Seems that your amp does not support full color range. edit xorg.conf and set color range to limited.
Considering that the picture is excellent when viewing cable, that doesn't make any sense to me. If the amp supports full color range for the Cable box then it seems that it should for the XBMC system.
Amp specifications say "...HDMI Deep Color support-36bit, HDMI xvYCC color space support,..."
Cable boxes, dvd players, or other consumer electronics device in general only use limited color range. PCs use full range.
Quote:Black and white levels for video components shall be either “Full Range” or “Limited Range.” YCbCr components shall always be Limited Range while RGB components may be either Full Range or Limited Range. While using RGB, Limited Range shall be used for all video formats defined in CEA-861-D, with the exception of VGA (640x480) format, which requires Full Range.
source:
http://www.audioholics.com/tweaks/calibr...-xvycc-rgb
When connecting a PC to a TV, you either do this by connecting it to a dedicated PC input or you configure you TV to full color range. You amp may not support this.
Hmm. OK, I will give it a try when I get home. Thanks.
(2013-07-29, 18:03)FernetMenta Wrote: [ -> ]edit xorg.conf and set color range to limited.
Well I made the change and rebooted, and the picture looks exactly the same. Bummer.
please post your xorg.conf
(2013-07-29, 16:21)Scottes Wrote: [ -> ]I've just set up XBMCbuntu on a PC with an NVidia GT520M. It's plugged into a Denon AV amp, along with my cable box, and the Denon outputs to my TV, all HDMI.
I've adjusted the TV settings so that the Cable picture looks excellent. The XBMC picture is not so great - whites are too bright, and darks are too dark. I can play with the XBMC brightness and see plenty of details in either, but never both at the same time.
I exited XBMC and logged in to XBMCbunut and ran nvidia-settings to adjust the Gamma, and saved the ~/.nvidia-settings-rc. But I can not get these settings to be applied when XBMC is running. No matter what I set for gamma values, the XBMC picture is not changed. I see no indication - log, etc - that the settings where applied.
From my research, this seems to be because booting into XBMC does not run a window manager, but correct me if I'm wrong. I have tried using .xinitrc to run nvidia-settings --load-config-only, but again I get no indication that this worked.
What is the correct way to apply the .nvidia-settings-rc to the XBMC session in XBMCbuntu?
How about running nvidia-settings --load-config-only from the XBMC startup script?
(2013-07-30, 07:43)nickr Wrote: [ -> ]How about running nvidia-settings --load-config-only from the XBMC startup script?
What is the name of the XBMC startup script on XBMCbuntu? That, basically, is my original question, but I can't figure it out. Every way I've tried has not taken effect.
(2013-07-30, 06:35)FernetMenta Wrote: [ -> ]please post your xorg.conf
As a note, I check the amp and it said that the Cable box was YCbCr 4:4:4 with bit depth of 8, and the XBMC was in RGB 4:4:4 with a bit depth of 8. So I added
Option "ColorSpace" "YCbCr444"
to the Screen section of xorg.conf which the amp recognized but the picture did not discernibly change.
xorg.conf (YCbCr)
http://pastebin.com/CZTf7EtE
Xorg.0.log (YCbCr)
http://pastebin.com/ugZ24YeS
Xorg.0.log.old (xorg.conf was set to RGB)
http://pastebin.com/kiXT1aby
Thanks.
Are you sure that you don't have a nvidia-settings-rc file which gets loaded?
What if you change color range from inside nvidia-settings? Do you see the difference?
I have ~/.nvidia-settings-rc and have the the gammas set to 2.200000. After rebooting, there is no difference in picture, and the Xorg.0.log says that it's using gamma of 1.0. So I have to assume that it's not getting loaded.
I did not try changing the color range inside the settings file, but I can.
Again though, the AV amp did recognize when the change when I added the YCbCr option to xorg.conf. Originally the amp reported that the signal was RGB. I added the YCbCr option to xorg.conf, rebooted, and the amp reported that the signal was YCbCr. But the picture looked the same, or at least not discernibly different.
well, if you need a gamma of 2.2, something must go completely wrong. have you tried bypassing the amp and configure tv back to factory settings?
I don't actually know if I need a gamma of 2.2 - I just set it that high to make sure that I'd see a difference and therefore know that settings are being applied. There's no sense in attempting tweaks that aren't taking effect. Once I can get the settings to apply then I can tweak those settings until things are correct.
And gamma is just my guess at fixing out this issue. I don't know if gamma will fix it, or just make it marginally better, or what. Your suggestion of ColorRange = Limited makes more sense to be a fix, but that seems to be recognized but not making a difference.
I have not - yet - tried going right into the TV. That's on my list of things to try this weekend when I have time and won't disturb the families viewing of the only TV in the house. The TV can handle different settings for different inputs, so I can adjust gamma/brightness/contrast depending on which HDMI is in use. That has it's benefits, but then I have to muck with getting audio split off to the amp...
And this all baffles me because everything else plugged into this amp - every cable box we'd have, PS3, WII, XBox, and Boxee Box - have all looked fine. I have to wonder if XBMCbuntu is somehow blocking things, like it seems to be doing with the apparent failure to apply the .nvidia-settings-rc. Granted, this could easily be a lack of knowledge, but I have to wonder if loading a "full" Ubuntu would work better. At least it seems like it would be more standard in it's handling of X.
Yes, running XBMC from inside a window manager is a good idea. You can put it to windowed mode and run nvidia-settings at the same time.
I am not familiar with xbmcbuntu but I think it should be possible to launch xbmc from the desktop session.
Personally I would avoid a "full Ubuntu". 13.04 didn't even start after installation on one of my boxes. I had to install minimal ISO and lxde.