G1S - HDMI to HDTV Question

So I picked up an HDMI cable today and connected my G1S to my Toshiba 32" HDTV. My tv is a 720p/1080i display, I believe its native resolution is 1368 x 768. So when I connected the G1S to the tv via HDMI, it showed up fine with the exception that I'm not fitting in the entire desktop on the tv. It's like the desktop is being zoomed in a bit, so I loose the outer edges. I tried checking my various tv settings, messing around with both the Nvidia control panel and regualr Windows display preferences and I can't find anything. Changing the output res doesn't fix it, same issue even at 1280x720. I was actually sending out a 1920x1080 signal via the HDMI and the tv was accpeting it even though it onl does 1080i and everything looked good with the exception my screen edges getting cut off.

Any ideas?

 

You need to set fit aspect scaling in your advanced display settings.

right now the image is being overscaned to fit the screen.

also you need to make sure your using it as the primary display or as a extended desktop not a clone of a higher resolution desktop.

 

Would you guys rate the picture improvement to be very noticeable between vga and hdmi? I would be going from laptop to a 50" screen.

 

Well without the HDMI cable you won't be able to get the higher resolution so yea there will be a noticeable picture improvement

 

Sorry, I should have clarified. I know the resolution will be better, but I was wondering first hand, how much better? I am looking at notebooks with and without the hdmi and dvi, so I wonder how much importance I should attach to it.

Thanks!

 

This is known as overscan which is a common pratice in TV broadcast. The cause date back to the analog TV days when unless the broadcast equipment is calibrated to perfection. there are time that a line or 2 of noise will appear at one of the edge of the picture. Since it would be too costly to make sure that all the station transmitter and your TV tuner is always perfectly calibrated. It was decided that all TV will overscan the incoming signal so you'll never see the true edge of the picture (afterall, who would have cared if you lose a few pixel on the edge on SDTV).

Well, now comes the digital age and we are able to put out precise digital signal that does not have noise line at the edge but a lot of TV manufacturer is still using overscan in teir product since most HDTV nowaday still have analog tuners. Some of them have include options for 1:1 pixel mapping (each manufacturer do it differently like PC mode in display setting, a dedicate DVI input for PC, etc) while others have not. A good place to check is here:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/forumdisplay.php?f=166

Look up your model and read the messages as there are a lot of HTPC user and if anyone knows how to get rid of overscan on your TV, they would.

P.S. The VGA input should offer no overscan so you can try that. If you are only using a short video cable (under 6 feet) the picture at 1366x768 should be fine. BTW VGA works fine in mostt cases up to 1920x1200 so whoever said that you can only get high-res on HDMI is wrong.

 

I tried looking on the Nvidea control panel to se if there was anything to turn off overscan or scale down the image but I found nothing.

I will check AVS forum but if anyone has any otehr ideas please let me know, thanks.

 

You can't turn off the overscan from the vidoecard. It's a function of the TV. If there is way on your model, it will be in one of the TV menu options.

 

it would be in your tv menu...

 

I already went through my tv's menu whe n ifirst connected the laptop and there is no option that would relate to any overscan. The only screen adjustment that it allows is in terms of stretching the video to either crop for letter box, stretch to fit the screen or to leave it as is. I tried connected my digital cable bax via HDMI and there is no "overscan" with it so I'm assuming that this is an issue on the signal being sent out from the laptop.

 

Does it do audio via HDMI when you connect it up to your HDTV? I have a VX2 with HDMI but if it doesn't do audio via it then I won't bother getting the HDMI cable I'll just stick with VGA and the 3.5mm audio output.

 

It doesn't do audio. As for myself I'd like to use HDMI to get the best possible picture quality as I work in creating HD content so it be nice to connect my laptop to my HDTV to preview my work and make sure everything looks good.

 

Whether you can get hi-res (e.g. 1080p) over VGA will depend on your TV; I have a Sharp and you can only get the high resolutions with HDMI. However Samsungs, for example, tend to have 1080p over VGA. So both of you are correct!

Similar situation with disabling overscan. I can do it, but some TV's don't have the function. Most new ones should be able to do it, now that Blu Ray etc is outputting proper 1080p pictures (and you want 1:1 pixel mapping for that)

Can the G1s actually output 1920x1080?

 

not true at all, it just so happens nvidia has taken out the scaling options in the last 2 or 3 releases of there firmware. If you roll back to some older drivers you will find that you can control this stuff from the advanced display controls.

Your TV usually only has a options of aspect strech or fit to screen, and in some rare ocasions no strech (high end stuff, but mostly computer monitors and even then its sort of rare)

I use a 1920x1080 HD TV as my computer monitor and it works on dvi , hdmi, or vga.

dvi was the best way to go for me tho, it treats the screen more like a computer monitor.


as for picture quality dvi = hdmi the only real diffrence is that hdmi can carry audio, but your video card doesnt send an audio signal out so its kind of nil.. There is one video card I know of that can do this tho. Thats the AMD 2900XT, it has a port where you can connect it to your sound card and then it sends both video and sound thru the hdmi cable. I personally always send video and audio sepratly tho because the audio goes to my sterio and the video to the TV so hdmi is a bad thing in my case not a good thing.

I prefer good ol' DVI. VGA can indeed support those high resolutions but the quality is almost never as good because its an analog signal it must be broken down and encoded by the tv unlike a digital signal wich the tv can just process.

Maybe nobody heard yet... but in the computer world... even tho DVI was rather new and is trying to be taken over by hdmi... well hdmi will be gone soon and in comes... Display Port!

Yep another new standard, and its already been adopted as the national standard for computer displays so its inevitable that it will happen.

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

Dell is probably going to be the first to roll out with display port on there monitors, they already have a some made.

http://www.gearlog.com/2007/05/dell_shows_off_superslim_displ.php

 

Out of curiosity - have you tried to run a video file through HDMI?

Can you do me a favour and run a full screen video/media file through HDMI or VGA and see if you get 'tearing' on the screen in scenes with significant motion (eg running, car chases, etc - not dialogue scenes!).

When I play through VLC onto either a standard TV or a plasma screen through HDMI I get tearing. As I mentioned, I use VLC as my media player.

Anyone else seen this on their G1S - or is this a common symptom for other laptops too? Note, there is no tearing on my actual laptop screen...

Petrov.

 

under the control panel settings try changing the setup to "clone" or "singel view" on the TV.

 

If your TV has the PC input, like Standard, 4:3, Wide, 16:9, Etc. try that. On my Sammy DLP I put it on PC versus wide for everything else, and it zooms the picture out and allows the whole desk top to be viewed. The downside is that I have a 1280p so the max desktop is 1280x720 progressive, programs like google earth give warnings that there is not enough verticle resolution, but it still works. If I use wide mode, then I set the resolution to some less than 1280x720, and it wits well, but it looks slightly dull, games work great though, especially fear! I used my old dv9000t HP with a 1440x900 native display, and an nVidia go7600, and the card recognised the tv as a samsung (digital handshake for HDCP), and it offered the reduced res and full res that is cut off.
Some TV like the devide to be plugged in and on prior to the TV turning on, others like it after thay are on, so try both ways.

 

Do you even understand what overscan is? Spend some time over at the AVSforums and maybe you'll learn something. Overscan is a function of the TV, it will take any input from your videocard (doesn't matter if it offers scaling or not) and only shows you about 98% of the picture by cutting off a few pixel on each edge. The only way to solve this problem is if the TV have a setting option that allow 1:1 pixel mapping. Unfortunately, some HDTV manufacturer have not caught up to the idea that a lot of people will also be using them as a computer monitor and did not offer an option to disable overscan.

BTW, your Westy 37" is not a HDTV, it designed as a 1920x1080 HD monitor so it won't overscan. But all the HDTV on the market (Samsung, Sony, JVC, Sharp, etc) overscan by default but some allows you to disable overscan as an option.

 

Okay, I don't think this is an overscan issue as the tv doesn't overscan my other HDMI feed. It is also cutting of a lot of the screen, not just a bit, it's enough to know it doesn't look right. I think this is more of getting the right resolution out to my TV.

I have tried the various modes such as clone, primary display, all the options that are listed. I think that this is something I'll need to control through the laptops output.

And to answer some questions posted...

Yes the GS1 will out put 1920x1080.

I tried playing back a DVD and it looked really great via HDMI, no tearing at all even with fast movement - the same is true for games, I tried Half Life 2 and it looked really great.

I think over the weekend I'll spend some time to try and figure this out, I think I might look around Nvidia's site to see if I can find anything.

 

Your TV's native is 1366x768, if you are losing image on all four side of the screen when running 1366x768 from your laptop than it's overscaning. Overscan setting is different from manufacturer to manufacturer, some will just cut a few pixel while some will cut off like a 1/4".

We just tried a G1S @1920x1080 on a Sony XBR2 60" over the weekend and we have the same problem while it's perfect on my Sharp 46" when I set it to 1:1 mapping.

 

I finally messed with HDMI today on it, I sure wish it did audio, even just 2-channel would be so useful.

 

@ wiz I know exactly what overscan is, its when the image is zoomed in and you lose some of the outer picture.

We also have the new beta drivers up that finaly have fixed aspect scaling put back in.

1:1 maping wont fix overscan if the source is a higher resolution than the dispaly devices native res, infact it would cause it.


I definitely understand what your saying if the tv itself is taking any native res signal and overscaning it but I have never heard of that and you could still compensate for it via your scaling options on your video card.

and while we are at it, yes I love my 37" westy its the best computer monitor ever.

 

Actually. if there is a 1:1 pixel mapping on the TV setting, it'll even allow higher than native res if the TV will down-convert the signal without overscan. You will lose clarity but you will not lose part of the image.

Most of the 1366x768 HDTV on the market will accept 1080i/p inputs but will down-convert them to 1366x768 before outputting to the display with or without overscan depending on the TV.

Go over to avsforums and search "overscan" in the "Display Device" section and you see that all HDTV/SDTV does overscan and it's just a matter if the manufacturer provide an option to have it turned off. Without that option. There is nothing you can do on the Videocard end to compensate as the TV will take whatever input res you select and overscan it to the display.

 

Actually. if there is a 1:1 pixel mapping on the TV setting, it'll even allow higher than native res without overscan (as long as the TV will accept the higher than native res). You will lose clarity but you will not lose part of the image.

Most of the 1366x768 HDTV on the market will accept 1080i/p inputs but will down-convert them to 1366x768 before outputting to the display with or without overscan depending on the TV.

Go over to avsforums and search "overscan" in the "Display Device" section and you see that all HDTV/SDTV does overscan by default and it's just a matter if the manufacturer provide an option to have it turned off. Without that option. There is nothing you can do on the Videocard end to compensate as the TV will take whatever input res you select and overscan it to the display.

 

1:1 is perfect pixel matching. If you have 1:1 with a 200x200 source on a 1920x1080 screen it will be a small box in the center with black all around.

The idea is to not distort the picture in any way shape or form.

shrinking a larger image to fit on the screen is not 1:1 thats aspect stretch or fit to screen.

Video cards have had overscan correction for years...

http://www.anandtech.com/multimedia/showdoc.aspx?i=2181&p=3

2004 and there was already a way to fix it. Problem is again I repeat that the latest firmware has had the scaling options removed for some odd reason, so you can fix it with old forceware drivers, or possibly the brand new beta drivers that just came out.

 

What model number do you have on your TV? the 32HL67 are suppose to have a native mode under the screen setting that will remove the overscan. But if you have the 32HL95 or 32HL86. Then you don't have an option to remove overscan.

P.S. How can you tell that other HDMI source is not overscanned? You won't be able to tell if there is overscan unless you know precisely where the edge of any image ends. Do you know the precise edge of any TV broadcast? If not, how do you know it's not overscanned. The only reason you know the PC desktop is overscanned is that we know precisely where it should end (missing part of the taskbar will be a dead giveaway).

 

1:1 is still 1:1 if the TV takes the 1920x1080 input and down-convert it to 1366x768 before it hit's the display. It'll lose clarity but it got nothing to do with overscan.

The video driver method of dealing with overscan is very imprecise and a joke in dealing with all digital signal. It basically reduce the display area so you get the full image on the display.

Let's say you set you output to 1366x768 and you see that your TV is overscanning. You then tell the driver to reduce the image size by 3% and now you see the full image on the display. Do you think you have now gotten 1:1? No! what you have gotten is a 1325x745 image on a 1366x768 display. Yes it fits but it's not 1:1 native.

You are lucky you don't have to deal with this on the Westy. But if you are unfotunate enough to get one of the model that does not allow for native. You'll be having buyer remorse like a lot of people on AVS that's pulling their hair out trying to get around it.

 

Is this under the NVidia control panel - display properties...?

Petrov.

 

There is a LVM37W3 that has the issue, or you mean a totally different model all together?

Your right about the overscan fix, but its still better than losing part of your image.

 

My Toshiba tv is the 32HL66 and it does have a natural option in the display which what I had it set to under HDMI.

As for over scan on my tv, if it was over scanning it would be doing it on all sources right. If it's doing it on HDMI it would be doing it on component input as well. So I should be seeing over scan when I play my 360, or watch HD-DVDs what ever else I have hooked up. The reason I don't think my tv is doing over scan, at least not to the extent that it's causing me to loose so much of my desktop is that I've watched animations that I've created. These are motion graphics for broadcast tv. I've watched our demo reel and various pieces on air in both HD and SD here at home and if I was loosing as much image as I was with my G1S hooked up I would notice it.

I'm not saying my tv doesn't over scan the image, I just find it hard to believe that I'm loosing so much of my desktop to over scanning and not some other issue.

Any way, over scan or not, the way I need to fix this issue is by adjusting some setting on my laptop. I need to find a way to scale the image and I'm not talking about lowering or raising the resolution. I would have expected the Nvidia control panel to have this but since people have mentioned that Nvidia removed such a feature I'm hoping the next batch of drivers released will re-include this option.

 

Its in the beta drivers jb22, so it should be in the full release of them.

Also even in the current drivers there is a way to get a ~8% overscan adjustment but you have to do a registry edit.

 

I was just playing around and was looking through the Nvidia help files and it seems what I'm looking for is called "overlap" and but apparently this feature is not yet available for Vista, so if their in the beta drivers then hopefully the next full release will include the feature.

 

No, Since the westy were designed primary as an monitor. Overscan was never an issue with any of them.

I don't know if it's possible to set custom res with the nVidia driver. If so, one thing that can be tried is by setting a slightly larger display res (say 1400x800) and than reducing the image area so you end up with 1366x768 on the screen even with overscan but it would take a lot of trial and error to get it perfectly on the screen.

 

I guess I should have saved the page I was in that told how to do the overscan fix for current drivers.

It was a microsoft page of all things and a registry edit for vista.

 

I believe that this article might help with the overscanning problem.
http://nvidia.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/nvidia.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=2064

I've tried the help in this article but it doesn't work for me. Can someone else try?

 

This thread began with a user experiencing a problem, seeking a solution. It then horribly snowballed into a useless squabble among pundit-wannabes trying to feed each other a ton of garbage that is mostly useless to the original poster. These folks tell the OP to 'search' another forum without ever providing a solution. Even worst, they have the energy/time to ramble on and on lucubrating everybody else on esoteric things they most likely won't even care about.

Firstly, yes, all TVs have inherent overscan. No brainer, duh. Most TVs do have an option to adjust overscan by increasing or decreasing it but almost all TVs lack the option to completely rid overscan.

The solution? Simple - 70moyo above posted a link to nVidia's answer and that is the solution. Nvidia usually gives you multiple options for multiple resolutions for multiple TV sets. All TVs are not built the same and thus, you have to use the various resolutions that Nvidia has provided to see which fits your TV the best.

Nvidia does this by resizing the desktop of your computer so that when it is output to your TV, the 'black border' that you would normally get from resizing your desktop to a smaller one would be in the space of the overscan, thus making it appear as if your desktop is perfectly fitted to your TV.

The TV's native resolution may be 768 but simply thinking on a numbers basis will not lead you to a solution - you just have to go by trial and error using Nvidia's available resolution options to see which works the best on your TV because all TVs have overscan and this trait varies among TV sets, even from the same manufacturer.

 

I appreciate the link - although I'm not a fan of the fact that this "fix" disables HDCP support, I will give it a try though. So obviously Nvidia is aware of this problem, hopefully they'll offer up a solution that can be accessed via their control panel with the next driver update.

 

jb, all is not lost, though - the only thing you lose is the ability to play Blu-Ray and HD-DVD movies from say, an external BR/HDDVD drive connected to your laptop...but why would you ever buy one of those when one can be had for even cheaper for your TV?

On the other hand, you can still download 720p/1080i/1080p content online and play it on your laptop, which will then be registered to the TV. The only thing that WON'T play on your TV is any HDCP-supported device connected to your laptop (and the G1S does not have any Blu-Ray or HD-DVD drives).

 

Some may recall that I was having an annoying 'tearing' phenomenon whenever I output from my G1S to TV or HDTV (either by SVideo or HDMI). I was using VLC, I tried using Media Player with FFDShow installed, everything, but nothing helped hugely.

Then I changed my NVidia Control Panel settings so the TV was my primary output (cf secondary), not the notebook LCD. And the tearing stopped.

I *think* somenoe actually mentioned this in one of the threads earlier, but I had forgotten to try it. Anyway, it worked for me, so if anyone else is noticing this, please try this as it may fix any tearing.

Petrov.

 

Well I haven't had a chance to try the registry fic posted above but I did come across some new Nvidia ForceWare drivers that might solve the over scan issue.

These are beta drivers so I'm not sure if it's worth trying, I've also read on here that video drivers not provided by Asus won't work, I don't really understand why that would be so.

You can find download links here: http://www.tcmagazine.com/comments.php?shownews=15381

EDIT - Sorry to download from the link above it wants you to register so I found an alternative download link from Nvidia itself (go figure) - http://www.nvidia.com/object/winvista_x86_162.22.html

EDIT #2 - Okay, so I don't think that mobile cards are supported with these, it also seems that these beta drivers kind of suck - so maybe not worth downloading unless you feel like experimenting.

 

Yes, these are beta drivers, but in the release notes they say they add the support to "resize the desktop area on HDTV".
I think that in some days (or maybe less) you will able to find some modded drivers based on the 162.22 on the usual sites.
And in one or two weeks nvidia will come up with another version less "beta" with the same ability.
Good luck to all nvidia 8x00 + hdtv owners!