Black border with HDMI input on Panasonic 42PZ700A?

monkey · **7th May 2008, 06:31 PM**

I recently purchased a new 42" plasma TV - a Panasonic TH-42PZ700A - with the intention of running it from a dedicated Vista Media Center PC. This TV is supposed to be full 1080p resolution, however I am noticing some weirdness when displaying the HDMI source from the media PC.

When watching HDTV through the DVB tuner within the TV, the picture is displayed such that it fills the entire panel, as expected. However, if I switch to the HDMI signal from the PC, there is a distinct half-inch black boarder of unused panel space around the desktop display!

This seems extremely odd to me, because

* The TV is FullHD 1920x1080 pixel resolution (according to the specifications: http://panasonic.com.au/products/spe...?objectID=4056)

* The HDMI display from PC is configured to output a proper 1920x1080p signal (I have tried both 50p and 60p and interlaced modes and all have the same effect)

* Yet I am getting a black border around the screen which clearly shows that the HDMI signal is NOT being displayed 1:1 on the screen pixels! (fiddling with the settings on the TV including overscan etc doesn't seem to help either)

Has anyone else experienced this? Is it something that I should expect? Does anyone know how to get this TV to display 1:1 from an HDMI source?

I am concerned that running the screen from the media PC like this will result in burn-in from the unused portion of the screen (not to mention the reason I bought this screen was specifically to get full native 1080p resolution, not something that is scaled by the TV!)

Does anyone know what I can do to fix this and use the full screen area? Alternatively, does anyone know if 42" 1080p LCD TVs have the same problem (such as the Sharp LC42D83X)?

Thanks for your advice!

TheRob · **7th May 2008, 06:43 PM**

What video card are you using? Go into the driver control software for the card and make sure there is no scaling selected.

monkey · **7th May 2008, 06:50 PM**

The video card is the onboard graphics on the Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2H mainboard (Radeon 3200 chipset).

I'm fairly sure there is no scaling enabled (will check again tonight) as it was working perfectly on my Dell 24" 1900x1200 LCD monitor through VGA output. The only difference is now I'm using the HDMI output and the TV (with different resolution obviously).

The crap thing is the TV doesn't support VGA resolutions beyond 1366x768 unless you use HDMI (even though the panel is 1920x1080, go figure!), so I can't even revert back to that

kieran45 · **7th May 2008, 08:39 PM**

I had a similar issue with my setup. I found that changing the way I had my monitor setup in MCE fixed it. From memory I have my TV setup as either a "monitor" or a "flat panel" in the TV setup options, and when I had it set up as a "TV" it did the same black border thing you are describing. I can't remember exactly what setup I went with in the end, but if you fiddle around with these settings in the TV setup options it might help you.

TheRob · **8th May 2008, 11:59 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by kieran45

I had a similar issue with my setup. I found that changing the way I had my monitor setup in MCE fixed it. From memory I have my TV setup as either a "monitor" or a "flat panel" in the TV setup options, and when I had it set up as a "TV" it did the same black border thing you are describing. I can't remember exactly what setup I went with in the end, but if you fiddle around with these settings in the TV setup options it might help you.

Yes, you should definately go through the TV setup wizard within the Media Center interface and select 'flat panel'. I believe if you select the 'TV' option it tries to do something tricky with the scaling to get it to fit older analogue TVs. This might be causing your problem.

logifuse · **8th May 2008, 12:11 PM**

Re-read the original post guys:

Quote:

However, if I switch to the HDMI signal from the PC, there is a distinct half-inch black boarder of unused panel space around the desktop display!

The TV wizard in VMC won't fix it. The problem is overall underscan of the desktop - how do you correct that in ATI drivers?

Justin

TheRob · **8th May 2008, 12:44 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by logifuse

Re-read the original post guys:
The TV wizard in VMC won't fix it. The problem is overall underscan of the desktop - how do you correct that in ATI drivers?

Justin

The Catalyst Control Center has a Scaling tab with a slider to adjust underscan/overscan.

monkey · **10th May 2008, 11:47 AM**

Fixed it! You were right - for some reason the ATI drivers had defaulted to 10% underscan, which was giving me the black border.

Here's how I fixed it (for anyone else who has a similar problem):

- Right click on desktop and select Catalyst Control Center (select Advanced mode)
- Expand the DTV (HDMI) option
- Click on "Scaling Options"
- Drag the "Underscan/Overscan" slider all the way to the right (0%)

Now the picture fills the whole screen and pixels are small and crisp. Its amazing how much better it looks!

aphilgr1 · **10th May 2008, 03:34 PM**

A fried of mine had the 50PZ700 and for quite a long time we where breaking our heads to find a way to fix it from the PC. We tried Powerstrip, Beta drivers, timings etc

It turned out it was much easier since there is an Overscan/Underscan option in the TV's advanced menu. Check it out