[henners]

Hi,

I've spent so long searching for ideas regarding this issue, so I hope you can help!

Basically, I have a Sony Bravia KDL-32V4000 LCD Television which I wish to output HDMI video from my laptop to. I have a Dell XPS M1330, and when the laptop is connected to the screen via HDMI the TV automatically recognises it and changes the resolution to 720p (it flashes this up on the screen for a second) but when the image loads it is slightly larger than the actual screen size! In effect, the taskbar has disappeared together with the other sides of the screen, and I can't find any option on the TV to avoid this (lots of internet chatter about "overscan" but I can't find any such option on the TV)!

Out of desperation I borrowed another Dell laptop, a Studio 15, and plugged this into the TV. A lower spec laptop, when plugged in via HDMI to the TV it doesn't change to 720p (because it probably doesn't support it) so after plugging in the TV changes the resolution to 1360x768 (again, this flashes up for a second). At this resolution the laptop output on the TV is perfect quality, displaying the whole screen! The only issue is that there are a couple of small black bars at either side of the screen to compensate, but this is minor considering the full display of the screen.

Any ideas about what I can do to get this to display properly? Any help would be gratefully received! Please let me know if I can provide any more details.

Thanks :o)

[Boon72]

have you looked at the laptop graphics setup for the external output?

my Dell studio uses an ATI 3450 to output via HDMI, i needed to detect the tv to setup to use my Samsung & to play bluray films i have to have the laptop screen off

[steve69]

i had this problem with a desktop i wanted to put to my tv. i tried every single thing with the desktop and the graphics card, to no avail. in the end i found out that i had my tv on just scan, i turned it onto 16.9 and hey presto everything was great.
i dont know if this will help or not, hope it does.

[henners]

Originally Posted by Boon72

have you looked at the laptop graphics setup for the external output?

my Dell studio uses an ATI 3450 to output via HDMI, i needed to detect the tv to setup to use my Samsung & to play bluray films i have to have the laptop screen off

Thanks for your message!

Neither the studio 15 nor the XPS M1330 (my laptop) use an ATI card unfortunately though. Both use "Intel Graphics Media Accelerator Driver for mobile" when I go to Graphics Properties, and there doesn't seem to be a "Detect TV" option. Like I said at the start, when I plug either laptop into the TV it seems to recognise the HDMI input, and changes the resolution as appropriate, but for the XPS machine it makes the image larger than the TV screen and I would very much like it to be a perfect picture of the whole screen, like it does with the Studio 15.

[henners]

Originally Posted by steve69

i had this problem with a desktop i wanted to put to my tv. i tried every single thing with the desktop and the graphics card, to no avail. in the end i found out that i had my tv on just scan, i turned it onto 16.9 and hey presto everything was great.
i dont know if this will help or not, hope it does.

Thanks for this. I found this mentioned on many internet forums but I've no idea where such an option may reside on this TV - it's so frustrating. I've added the model/make of the TV just in case anyone has the same TV and is able to assist, because all I want is for it to just work! :o)

[steve69]

i would say by having a quick look for you that its the second button down on the left hand side according to this http://pdf.crse.com/manuals/4114592111.pdf looks like button 20 on page 8 on there, and page 13 for how to change it.

it does say on page 20 about the display mode being for the pc input but i would of thought that would be for the vga, which wouldnt be of use.
other than this, i aint got a clue sorry.

[henners]

Originally Posted by steve69

i would say by having a quick look for you that its the second button down on the left hand side according to this http://pdf.crse.com/manuals/4114592111.pdf looks like button 20 on page 8 on there, and page 13 for how to change it.

it does say on page 20 about the display mode being for the pc input but i would of thought that would be for the vga, which wouldnt be of use.
other than this, i aint got a clue sorry.

Thanks for this. I've just had a look and unfortunately the button you mention does not affect HD pictures. It comes up with "Feature not available" when pressing it on the TV, and the .pdf/manual you reference also states that "HD signal source pictures can only be displayed in "Wide" mode", which is unfortunate.

Is anyone else able to shed any light on this issue?

[ziffius]

Have you not tried setting your laptop to 1360 x 768 like on the studio 15?

The studio 15 does support 720p, however 1360 x 768 is the preferred resolution. The TV reports this to the laptop, and hence why the studio 15 automatically connected in that resolution instead of 720p. There are meant to be two small bars either side, each 3 pixels wide making the resolution upto the panels native 1366 resolution.

I would try going to Intel's / Dell's website and downloading the most upto date drivers. Failing that, download powerstrip and create a custom 1360 x 768 resolution.

It can sometimes help to connect a PC to a specific HDMI port, in the V4000's case HDMI-3.

[henners]

Originally Posted by ziffius

Have you not tried setting your laptop to 1360 x 768 like on the studio 15?

The studio 15 does support 720p, however 1360 x 768 is the preferred resolution. The TV reports this to the laptop, and hence why the studio 15 automatically connected in that resolution instead of 720p. There are meant to be two small bars either side, each 3 pixels wide making the resolution upto the panels native 1366 resolution.

I would try going to Intel's / Dell's website and downloading the most upto date drivers. Failing that, download powerstrip and create a custom 1360 x 768 resolution.

It can sometimes help to connect a PC to a specific HDMI port, in the V4000's case HDMI-3.

Hi - thanks for your message, very useful indeed.

I should have mentioned that I can manually get the XPS laptop to display at the 1360 resolution to match what the studio 15 outputs, but what I find strange is that the TV and studio 15 set this resolution automatically, but my XPS machine and the TV don't choose this resolution and instead automatically flick to 720p, which is really odd. In essance, with a chosen resolution such as 1360, as opposed to "720p" (as it appears on the TV), am I not actually getting an HD output? And why does 720p fill my TV screen just that little too much? I know I should probably be happy that the laptop can output to the TV in good quality but I can't understand why what appears to be its native setting with the TV (720p) seems to not display correctly. If anyone's able to help then that would be brilliant!

[ziffius]

Originally Posted by henners

Hi - thanks for your message, very useful indeed.

I should have mentioned that I can manually get the XPS laptop to display at the 1360 resolution to match what the studio 15 outputs, but what I find strange is that the TV and studio 15 set this resolution automatically, but my XPS machine and the TV don't choose this resolution and instead automatically flick to 720p, which is really odd. In essance, with a chosen resolution such as 1360, as opposed to "720p" (as it appears on the TV), am I not actually getting an HD output? And why does 720p fill my TV screen just that little too much? I know I should probably be happy that the laptop can output to the TV in good quality but I can't understand why what appears to be its native setting with the TV (720p) seems to not display correctly. If anyone's able to help then that would be brilliant!

When using a PC with a HD tv, completely forget about 720p. What you want is 1:1 pixel mapping, where every individual pixel of the signal the PC sends to the screen gets displayed on a corresponding indivual pixel on the TV. If you use 720p this image has to be rescaled by the TV, which results in big loss of detail. Regardless of what resolution you have selected, the TV is displaying 1366 x 768, and 1280 x 720pdoesn't divide into this as the TV can't display half pixels etc.

There is a huge difference in 1360 x 768 displayed 1:1, and 1280 x 720 rescaled on text. Although with video/ images it's less noticeable. 1360 x 768 is still every bit HD that 720p is.

It's possible you may have overscan on 720p because the TV may not be aware that's a PC, as that's the same resolution that video devices output at. However 1360 x 768 is only used as a PC resolution (although the xbox 360 will list and support that resolution if you connect it to HDMI-3 on your TV), the TV will specifically know it is a PC and should automatically enable 1:1.

[henners]

Thank you very much for your message - your advice was really interesting and useful and I've been much happier using the XPS machine with the HD TV now

However, I've just tried the Studio 15 machine on a colleague's TV and I've found yet more problems... I've attached some images to show this. I've tried to attached the Studio 15 to a Toshiba 19DV555DB via HDMI and it doesn't display nicely at all! If I select the resolution 1280x768 it outputs the laptop's display within the centre of the TV, with a massive border around it (see TV2.jpg). However, if I set it to 1280x720 (see images TV1.jpg and TV3.jpg) it outputs the laptop's display so that it overhangs the TV screen, so we're missing bits of the laptop screen such as the start button. Very strange. Does anyone have any ideas how I can get this laptop to output to this TV so that it's good quality and fills the whole TV screen? The Studio 15 output to my Sony (see above messages) perfectly using 1360x768, so I know the laptop works with HDMI outputs, so would this be the TV? But the issues seem similar to what I've mentioned before...

If anyone can help with this issue then I'd really appreciate it - this is so confusing!

[henners]

Is anyone able to help with this confusing situation? The Toshiba TV doesn't automatically set the resolution of the laptop as the Sony TV would, so I'm stuck with either a resolution giving a small image in the middle of the TV, or a resolution giving a perfect image that is slightly too big for the TV! If it helps, the Studio 15 (as mentioned previously) outputs perfectly to my Sony TV using 1360x768, but when plugged into the Toshiba this resolution is not available! Nightmare!

If you're able to help at all then I'd really appreciate it

[henly]

On my Panasonic I have a setting called Picture Overscan, if that is turn on then I have the same prob that you have , turn it off and the prob disappeards and all the screen is accessible

[pjking]

I have the same issue and unfortunately, none of the fixes fully rectfy it. New Nvida control panels allows you to skew the resolution to fit your screen. Switching to the "just scan" or on some TV's "dot for dot" fix the overscan issue in windows, but for me at least then creaters a verticle overscan and horizontal underscan in games.

Go VGA or DVi as these have no such issues