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OG Xbox Forums => Official MediaXMenu (MXM) Forum => Dashboard Forums => MXM Developer/Skinner Forum => Topic started by: BenJeremy on June 22, 2003, 03:00:00 PM

Title: Help With My Skin
Post by: BenJeremy on June 22, 2003, 03:00:00 PM

Hmmm... that's a tough one. I might tyr and play with PAL on my Dev box, as I run it through a TV Wonder card, which should be capable of running PAL just fine.

Title: Help With My Skin
Post by: Cofi on June 22, 2003, 09:43:00 PM

I have a NTSC-Box and a PAL-TV, and I have kinda the same problem. So I just edit the coordinates and the width and height to fit my TV-screen. I have no Idea what it looks like when you try it on a NTSC-TV. Maybe the skinbg is totally offset.

Title: Help With My Skin
Post by: Cofi on June 23, 2003, 01:55:00 AM

WTH are you talking about?


<LayoutElement Type="Image" Source="Background">
 <Pos t="0" l="0" w="640" h="480" />
 <Scale x="true" y="true" />
 <Proportional>false</Proportional>
 <Sound Enable="false" SuspendMusic="false" />
</LayoutElement>


Just edit the bold part. If it's too wide just enter 620 or something as width. If you see a black border increase it too 630 and test. Same with the height. You maybe have to change the t and l variables. t=top and l=left.

Title: Help With My Skin
Post by: masahiko on June 23, 2003, 03:43:00 AM

i had this problem on my NTSC tv as well. i lost about 25px from each side (i made a background to mesure it). you'll find that most skins will be centered anyway though. i just worked with the full 640x480 and made sure that even if i lost 25-50px everything would still be visible.

Title: Help With My Skin
Post by: BenJeremy on June 23, 2003, 12:50:00 PM

QUOTE (bartdesign @ Jun 23 2003, 04:43 PM)

That's to bad, so i'm gonna loose 25px on each side. hmmm BJ: can you implent a center/resize? BjB

It's in the requests....

Screen calibration (per skin) and explicit handling for 1080i/720p modes as well.

Title: Help With My Skin
Post by: koldfuzion on June 23, 2003, 02:25:00 PM

QUOTE (bartdesign @ Jun 23 2003, 09:43 PM)

That's to bad, so i'm gonna loose 25px on each side. hmmm BJ: can you implent a center/resize? BjB

this is an default when working with video for use on tv's.  As all of them vary, there is a thing called. "video safe area"  that designers making dvd menus, graphics for tv etc are all aware of.. and yes.. you will lose approx 25 pixels on all four sides.

If you look at evolver (evox skin designer), or evox skinner 2 (image below) they both show the safe working area common for all tv's so that skin authors dont go into the forbidden zone.. or at least they were warned first.

Like I said though.. it varies. see the white box outline in the image below??... the designer of this image didnt take the safe working are into consideration.  (sorry about the image used for the screencap.. no disrespect to this forum intended)

The good news is xbox apps have the ability to allow the user to calibrate the screen.  Until BJ gets this feature in MXM.. please keep the safe area in mind, or create a overlay graphic that you can later delete from your project before finalizing.