16:9 & Computer Display

[mike_15]

I have a question for the people who have a 16:9 high def tv. How does it look while doing computer stuff on it? Does your computer have a custom aspect ratio in the setup for the screen size or does it stretch the desktop to fit?

Unfortunately I am not looking to hook it up to my Sage system but we need it for work, They want to put it in the lobby and run Power Point shows on it. My concern is that the slide shows will look stretched out and not natural, or worse unreadable. In your opinion would the presentations need to be made with the wide aspect ratio in mind or will a presentation made on a 4:3 monitor look good on it too?

Thanks
Mike

[gplasky]

I set my resolution for 720p on my HDTV. 1280 x 720. Desktop looks fine. But you do need to keep in mind the 16:9 aspect when creating graphics like wallpapers for desktops and I would think PowerPoint presentations. But if you create it on the same machine it is a no brainer. Create it somewhere else and I would think it would look streched on the 16:9.

Gerry

[Polypro]

Just picked up a Viewsonic N2750W 27" LCD/HDTV. It does 1280x720p native, and has 1:1 pixel mapping, so no over/underscan adjustments needed. Looks great. Affordable too

P

[Kanati]

I run my sage on my 65" mitsubishi HDTV at 1920x1080 and 1776x1000 (1080 has too much overscan to see anything on the edges, so I switch when I mess around with anything but sage)... It just like any other resolution excepting you have more real estate to play with. The same goes for my laptop which is 1920x1200. You just have more desktop. So yes, you have to keep the 16:9 ratio in mind while creating your slides.

[dkardatzke]

I just got a new HDTV and set my desktop to force 720p but I'm still getting overscan and can't see the edges of the desktop. The TV is set to 16:9 so it should be all set to diplay properly.

Any ideas for correcting the overscan I'm getting? I'm using a Radeon 9200 via VGA with the latest drivers.

Thanks.

[stanger89]

I'm assuming you mean an RPTV? If so, the overscan is part of the way the TV works. About all you can do is run a lower resolution (eg 1200x650). IIRC, the latest ATI (and nVidia for that matter) should offer overscan correction. However I think that's only on the Component/DVI outputs.

What you'll probably have to do, is get Powerstrip and create a custom resolution. I'd have to look to see exactly the procedure for doing it in powerstrip. I think it's go into the advanced timings, and "lock total geometry" then you change the horizontal/vertical resolution.

[gplasky]

Would this work for you?

Reducing Edge Distortion
When using a TV for your PC’s display, you may see
some edge distortion on the left and right side of your
TV screen. This effect depends on your TV and the
PC application you are running.
To reduce edge distortion, you can increase the TV
display’s horizontal size.

To Increase the Horizontal Size
1 Access the Windows® Control Panel. Doubleclick
Display.
2 Click on the Settings tab and then the
Advanced... button.
3 Click on the ATI Displays tab.
4 Click on the TV button.
5 Click the Adjustments tab.
6 In the Screen Size section, click on the plus (+)
button beside the horizontal arrowheads to
increase the horizontal size of the TV display.
7 Click OK or Apply to save the changes you have
made.

But just decrease the size. Sorry but I use nVidia cards.

Gerry

[dkardatzke]

If the max resolution of my DLP TV is 1280 x 720, would there still be overscan? I'm using the VGA connector on the back of the TV and the TV see's it as a PC connection.

[gplasky]

Yes. It's the nature of TV I believe. I know on my 1280 x 720 there is probably about 1/8" overscan on my HDTV connected via VGA. Using a nVidia FX5600. (The 1/8" is the approximate difference of what I see on the desktop (1024 x 768) on my PC monitor vs. the HDTV.

Gerry

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by dkardatzke

If the max resolution of my DLP TV is 1280 x 720, would there still be overscan? I'm using the VGA connector on the back of the TV and the TV see's it as a PC connection.

Yeah, the issue is that even with 1:1 pixel mapping, some of the pixels are projected onto the bezel around the screen instead of through the screen. That's why you need to run a slightly smaller resolution, so that all the active pixels go through the screen and only black pixels are projected at the bezel.

[mlbdude]

Overscan is good for TV and DVD, but can be a pain when trying to use your TV as a monitor. If you need to get rid of it use a custom resolution as gplasky says. Most people with digital TV's try and get 1:1 pixel mapping too rather than remove overscan.

[sleonard]

Originally Posted by mlbdude

Overscan is good for TV and DVD, but can be a pain when trying to use your TV as a monitor. If you need to get rid of it use a custom resolution as gplasky says. Most people with digital TV's try and get 1:1 pixel mapping too rather than remove overscan.

I have a DLP RPTV (Samsung) and I find the overscan to be tolerable but can't live without 1:1 pixel mapping.

[mayamaniac]

I have an nVidia Geforce 5700 and using one of the later nvidia driver, v7x.xx. I connected it to a LCD projection TV using DVI. In the TV Out options of the nVidia display properties, there's an option to correct the overscan problems so that the entire desktop fits on the LCD screen. I think what it does is scale down to fit the TV edges, but it looks great. The downside is when you watch a recording on SageTV, there are some scaling articfats in the video, barely noticable but you can see them if you are looking for them. I'm fine with it because I don't notice them. Its all documented in the nVidia HDTV PDF file. You can find it somewhere on their site.

[mike_15]

Whoa,
You have answered my question well,

I'm glad I cant afford one for myself yet. That way when I do buy one all the footwork is done.

It seems like with everything in this field, even something that would seem to be straight forward never is. You would think that you would find a TV with a high resolution equal to DVD format, a video card powerfull enough to display at that resolution and all would be good.

The complexity of this is amazing! Without this site, it would be beyond my ability

Thanks
Mike

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by mike_15

You would think that you would find a TV with a high resolution equal to DVD format, a video card powerfull enough to display at that resolution and all would be good.

It is normally, the problem comes when you want to start using it like a PC monitor as well.

[Malfunction]

What's a good basic video card to use for this kind of aspect ratio? I have a Viewsonic N3250W LCD panel with a native resolution of 1366x768. I'd like to find a video card that doesn't use a fan and has a composite and/or SVHS output.

The ancient ATI@PLAY card I use now doesn't even power it off and doesn't allow these resolutions. Too old, too small memory.

[Humanzee]

I have a Westinghouse 37" LCD. It is really just a big computer monitor as it has no built in HDTV tuner. It is hooked into DVI-D via nVidia 6600GT. The set is detected as a computer monitor and has a native resolution of 1920x1080. Just plug it in a move the resolution bar all the way to the right and I'm at 1080p. No overscan at all, in fact I have to configure my aspect ratios with some zoom to get rid of some underscan on some digital channels (artifacts at the top of the screen). Overall, I am very happy with my choice so far.

The problem now is that I think I need more CPU and Graphics GPU to push 1080p. I get 100% cpu and stuttering when trying to deinterlace 1080i content in vmr9.

I tried to set a custom resolution for 720p but the TV had to scale it back up to fill the screen so I just reverted to 1080p. The text is nice and clear but its hard to read from the couch.

In my case the monitor doesn't do any stretching of any windows applications. They show up like they do in any monitor, if you maximize the screen in an application, there is more than likely just a lot of area that isn't used. A lot of web pages are just in the middle of the screen etc. I havn't tried any power point presentations to see if they get streached or just leave areas blank.

[Hector]

Maybe I am missing something but looking at your sig you have a goodly bit more horsepower than I do (AMD 2800/512k/A180) and I can use FSE/VMR9 with my 6600gt via DVI and its just about perfect. I can't see the taskmgr in FSE but the system is very responsive so its not significant.

peace . . .

Originally Posted by Humanzee

The problem now is that I think I need more CPU and Graphics GPU to push 1080p. I get 100% cpu and stuttering when trying to deinterlace 1080i content in vmr9

[JUC]

I had problems with overscan on a sony A10 when running with VGA. The problem went away when I switched to usinga DVI to HDMI cable and selecting 720p in my video card settings....
JUC

[kpsmith]

Overscan and all has been talked to death so lets talk PowerPoint. Keep in mind that Powerpoint I believe uses Paper space/size not pixels to create slides. So ... i think you would have to use 16:9 paper to get it to display proportionally. Could be wrong but dont think so