[mythtv-users] [OT] LCD TV or LCD Monitor for Front-end

[Joey Morris]

Kenni Lund <kenni at kelu.dk> wrote on Sat, Feb 04, 2012 at 11:01:00AM +0100:
> 2012/2/4 Kenneth Emerson <kenneth.emerson at gmail.com>:
> >
> >
> > On Fri, Feb 3, 2012 at 5:01 PM, Jeff Artz <jeffa.myth at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> I have a 32" Samsung LCD (Model LN32C350D1DXZA) in my bedroom.  It's a
> >> '720p' set with a native resolution of 1366x768 (or 1360? I dunno...)
> >>
> >> Anyways, on one HDMI port, it will only accept HD resolutions, and
> >> overscans them. [Blah]
> >>
> >> On the other HDMI port, it accepts the native resolution of 1366x768 and
> >> does NOT overscan.  So I have my MythTV frontend connected to that HDMI port
> >> and a resolution of 1366x768.
> >>
> >> There is no setting on my TV to override the Overscan 'feature'...
> >>
> > I recently purchased a 40" Samsung LCD TV and connect to it with one of its
> > HDMI inputs.  There was overscan, but I was able to compensate for it with
> > the nvidia-settings program.  Is this not an option for you?
> 
> You shouldn't do anything to compensate for the so called "overscan".
> Like Simon wrote, it's a very suboptimal solution. If you get
> "overscan" it's most likely because your graphics card is using a
> resolution unsupported by your TV. Configure a proper modeline for
> Xorg, select the setting "Fit to screen" (or something near that) on
> the TV and set the sharpness filter to 0 on the TV. That should give
> you proper 1:1 pixelmapping. If you use some other approach by
> scaling, cutting or whatever, you'll be lowering the quality of the
> picture.

Kenni, I think the point is that some TVs don't have the "Fit to
Screen" option, otherwise known as "1:1", "Just Scan", etc. For
example, I have a Panasonic TC-L32C22. Before buying it, I read the
manual and saw that one of the "Screen Format" options was "Just". I
interpreted this as a 1:1 mode, but after receiving the set I realized
I was wrong. Playing a DVD through my DVD player connected to the
Panasonic and then my other TV (an LG that supports disabling
overscan) revealed that the Panasonic chopped a few pixels off all the
edges. Researching some more, I learned that the ability to turn off
overscan on Panasonics was controlled by the "HD Size" menu option,
which wasn't available on my model. Here is the description of that
option from the manual of the TC-L32U22, a higher model than mine:

Selects between 95% (Size 1) or 100% (Size 2) for the scanning area
with High-definition signal. Select "Size 1" if noise is generated on
the edges of the screen.
  Size 1: Scanning 95%
  Size 2: Scanning 100%

My TV doesn't support this option, and Panasonic evidently decided to
force my TV to use "Size 1". Therefore, regardless of the input I give
it, it displays only the middle 95% of the image. (This is for HDMI
only. It doesn't overscan over VGA, so I use VGA for MythTV.)