[mythtv-users] overscan problems with nvidia 8400 GS

[Matthew Harrison]

Brian Wood wrote:
> On Saturday 11 July 2009 05:40:03 Matthew Harrison wrote:
>   
>> Brian Wood wrote:
>>     
>>> The best solution was to use regulated power supplies, but that was very
>>> expensive with voltages in the hundreds and currents in the hundreds of
>>> milliamps, so this was not done except in the most expensive commercial
>>> units. It was simpler and cheaper to just overscan the sets, and nobody
>>> seemed to mind. It's why a TV picture is divided by a SMPTE standard
>>> into "safe action", "safe title" and the "rest", so nothing important
>>> would happen in the area missed by many TV sets. Typical manufacturer's
>>> solution: screw the customer in the interest of making more money.
>>>       
>> That's quite a cynical view. Do you really think the customer would have
>> paid lots more in order to get a fractionally higher visible resolution?
>>     
>
> I'm a cynical fellow, Most customers were not aware they had any alternatives.
>
>   
I wonder how consistent modern sets are. I've not dug out the relevant 
standards to check, but Wikipedia has this interesting nugget on the 
following page.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overscan

"With the accuracy attainable with digital type displays (e.g. plasma 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma>, LCD 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LCD> etc.), the area presented to the 
viewer is precisely defined. For 1080i or 1080p material only the 
central 1776x1000 pixels are presented to the viewer. For 720p material 
it is only the central 1152x648 pixels."

I hope that doesn't mean that I have to scale HD video up in order to 
correctly display it on my 1920x1080 LCD.