overscan sux

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boomshanka

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#21574 1-May-2008 00:23

overscan is satan's bedfellow .

not that i believe in heaven/hell but... . . . .

I've got a Panasonic Viera TX-32LX60A which overscans cronic .

I'm running DVI-HDMI thru an Albatron 6600GT (yeah, old) and have the nvidia 'underscan' util working ok on the win desktop .

...but when i load any non-windows progs, ie. Worms Armageddon, Battlefield, et al i get Overscan - and loss of Timer, Score, Kills, Bullets left, and other things that reside on the edge of the display .

Is there a way around this ?

Anyone had the same experience with this telly ? i think its a pretty common tv in NZ .

cheers for any help .

sbiddle

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#127445 1-May-2008 06:45

If you don't want to deal with overscan use the VGA input. Overscan is part of our TV standard and isn't something that's going to go away. VGA inputs will typically always give you a full panel with no overscan whereas using HDMI will give you overscan.

Unless you require HDCP for BluRay/HDDVD playback I'm not quite sure why so many people are obsessed with wanting to use HDMI for PC inputs, unless you've got a TV that will give you 1:1 pixel mapping over HDMI (some new TV's can do this, very few old ones can) you end up with a picture that looks far worse than VGA.

boomshanka

33 posts

Geek

#127461 1-May-2008 09:29

yeah, unfortunately this model doesn't have a vga input, only HDMI and component .

read somewhere some tellys have menu options to turn off overscan - not an option on mine ... unless there is a 'hack'

i guess i'll have to live with missing out on some of the screen for now ...

mcraenz

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#127521 1-May-2008 11:41

Is it not possible to set some custom resolution on the PC? It iwll it just overscan that too?

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sbiddle

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#127526 1-May-2008 11:49

You can set a custom resolution for the desktop but the problem is most games ignore the custom resolution and use standard VESA resolutions.

I've never seen or heard of a TV with a function to turn off overscsan. It's an legacy "feature" of the TV standard and is only really an issue if you're using a PC.

hazza87

352 posts

Ultimate Geek

#127543 1-May-2008 12:44

I connect my PC to a 40" Sony Bravia V Series LCD sometimes and have tried using the VGA connection as well as using a DVI to HDMi cable. The difference is like night and day, just looks so much better than the vga connection, colours more vibrant, picture looks sharper. I am using latest nvidia driver on a 8600GT and it recognizes my tv and then i set it to 720P and fix the overscan with the built in tool on the nvidia control panel. Admitedly i use this just for windows/mediaportal which works perfectly. Havent tried any games on it yet.

richms

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#128096 3-May-2008 00:20

I also fail to see why a non crt tv should have any overscan at all, I mean whats the point in having a standardized number of lines if you cant count on them all showing properly.

I always thought that 1080i meant 1080 visible lines, which is why the japanese call its 1125i and 750p which if I remember right had all the xbox 360 forums crying foul about them getting extra lines for a while.

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boomshanka

33 posts

Geek

#128100 3-May-2008 00:34

A follow-on from my previous post -

I've got a Panasonic Viera TX-32LX60...

it may be possible to get into the service menu to change overscan settings ... which are apparently called H-AMP / V-AMP / H-POS / V -POS (according to a post i read) .

i can get into the 'service menu 1' via a crazy key combination ...

but the settings i require are in 'service menu 2' which for the life of me i can't figure out how to get into ... and i've searched hard.

if theres anyone out there with a Panasonic set or any ideas/answers/places to look i'd be really grateful ... this has been bugging me since i got the set 2 years ago .

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mcraenz

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#128124 3-May-2008 10:54

Is this any help?

http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache:RRRWmT-sfHsJ:www.dtvforum.info/lofiversion/index.php/t24263.html+Viera+32LX60+overscan+service+menu&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=4&gl=nz&client=firefox-a

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lchiu7

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#128302 3-May-2008 22:30

sbiddle: If you don't want to deal with overscan use the VGA input. Overscan is part of our TV standard and isn't something that's going to go away. VGA inputs will typically always give you a full panel with no overscan whereas using HDMI will give you overscan.

Unless you require HDCP for BluRay/HDDVD playback I'm not quite sure why so many people are obsessed with wanting to use HDMI for PC inputs, unless you've got a TV that will give you 1:1 pixel mapping over HDMI (some new TV's can do this, very few old ones can) you end up with a picture that looks far worse than VGA.

Not obsession, necessity. My TV supports only 1024x768 over VGA but over HDMI supports up to 1920x1080. Of course there is overscanning occurring but the NVidia drivers can handle the overscan okay.

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boomshanka

33 posts

Geek

#128363 4-May-2008 11:19

mcraenz: Is this any help?

Close . I can get into Service Menu 1 using that method but my TV has a different menu/layout for getting into service menu 2 .

I'll have to fire some emails to Panasonic methinks .

tokyovigilante

58 posts

Master Geek

#133421 26-May-2008 21:12

I tried to fiddle with the service menu on my 50" Viera (TH-50PV70), but couldnt get it accurate enough, and in the end used DisplayConfigX (for Mac OS X) to adjust the horizontal and vertical porches (advanced display timings) to get 1:1 pixel mapping (well, as close as possible bearing in mind the 1024x768 rectangular pixel panel). There's probably a similar utility for Windows.

rhysb

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#133790 28-May-2008 11:29

I've got a Philips 1080p panel which only allows 1024x768 for VGA. It also overscans 1920x1080 over HDMI which I've created a custom res for. The fustrating thing is that it has an option called Native 1080 which gets rid of the overscan but doesn't save this setting if you turn off the screen.

Hopefully display manufacturers will wise-up and give us proper native resolution support.

michaelt

425 posts

Ultimate Geek

#500896 2-Aug-2011 16:23

In case anyone still has this problem, I've found a solution that works for my Panasonic TH-50PV70AZ plasma.

Set the PC resolution to 1366 * 768, and the PC's scaling to center image (or whatever your graphics card control panel calls it). This should output a 1080p signal, with the 1366 * 768 image in the centre.

Set the TV's aspect ratio control to 'Zoom 2'. This zooms in precisely on those centre 1366 * 768 pixels.

I'm not entirely happy with the fact that my PC is transmitting huge black borders which my TV is then cropping, but that's probably just the perfectionist in me. The result seems to be flawless.