HTPC TV Picture Quality

balforth

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I had some serious problems with the picture quality on my Samsung 46" LCD TV after hooking it up to my new HTPC, so I thought I'd share some of the tips I learned.

Make sure your resolution is set to the native resolution of your TV. Hopefully this is 1080p, 1920x1080.

Make sure overscan and underscan are disabled. In the NVIDIA Control Pannel, this is under Display -> Adjust desktop size and position. The drop down box labeled "Select the desktop resizing mode reported to the display" should be set to "Do not report".

DO NOT USE THE ADJUST DESKTOP SIZE AND POSITION TOOL (for NVIDIA Control Panel). If your image doesn't fit when set to the default resolution, you probably have the wrong picture mode set on your TV. Changing the image size in this tool actually changes your resolution.

For your TV, READ YOUR MANUAL!

Apparently, there is some REALLY crazy advice in your manual for setting up your TV while connected to a PC that might not make any sense, but do exactly what it says. Mine said to ensure the PC was connected to the FIRST HDMI port, and that I set the name to "DVI PC". What difference does that make, you might ask... beats the hell out of me, but it was the last thing on my list of things to try, and it's what took my screen full of funky fonts and artifacts to a pristine, crisp image.

Also on your TV, make sure you don't have anything like 4:3, 16:9, or any kind of zoom aspect ratio set. It should be set to a 1:1 pixel mapping. Apparently some TVs call it Just Scan; mine calls it "Screen Fit".

In general, turn off all the post processing, dynamic settings. I have been told that you should have your sharpness set to 0, but I find that a bit blurry and leave mine at 10.

At this point, you should have a sharp, crisp image.

In Windows 7, go to Control Panel -> Display -> Calibrate Color. This will step you through a guide to adjust your brightness/contrast. When it's finished, run the ClearType Text tool. This will help ensure that the fonts on your screen are adjusted to the best quality for your display.

Those are all the things I learned recently, so I thought I would pass them on.
 

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