[mythtv-users] To underscan, or not to underscan.

[Tom Dexter]

On Wed, Mar 19, 2008 at 1:05 PM, Skitals <hondacrxsi at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>  Now I could set TV playback to use the same settings as the menus, or I
>  could fix the overscan at the graphics card level, but I am hesitant for one
>  primary reason. And that is the effect of scaling for HD video playback. I
>  like the idea of playing back 1080i content w/o any type of scaling. If I
>  reset my video card settings to output say 1800x1012 with the proper offset,
>  how would that scaling effect video quality? I guess since most of my
>  content is 480p or 720p anyways, I might be making a big issue out of
>  nothing. I'm just curious what you people do who have tvs with outrageous
>  overscan.
>

My Hitachi RP CRT (51F500) has quite a bit...probably about 5%.  I run
at 1080i.  I've never attempted to do anything about it.  Anything you
do to address it at the source simply has to affect quality, and that
would bother me more than the overscan ever could.  I have my gui size
reduced in the mythtv options.

If you can change it at the TV that's probably the best option, if
any.  I could do that from the service menu of my Hitachi, but
apparently you can't change it by much, and doing so can cause
convergence issues...at a minimum it can make the automatic
convergence (their "Magic Focus") work incorrectly.  I never bothered
trying for that reason.  I'm not adverse to using the service menu
either...I've managed to do a great job of fixing the TVs red push and
overstated lime green for example.  It just doesn't sound like I could
correct the overscan enough to bother.

I've chosen to just live with it.

Tom