GA-MA78GM-S2H and Panasonic 50PX600A overscan

[fredpan]

Hi all,

I am thinking of building a VMC using the GA-MA78GM-S2H. I will ultimately be adding a Blu Ray drive and want to output via HDMI to a Panasonic 50PX600A. This set has 2 HDCP compliant HDMI inputs which supports both 1080i and 720p. It also has 1 VGA input which supports the most common resolutions including 1,280×1,024 @60 Hz (63.98KHz) and the panels native resolution of 1366x768 @ 60 Hz (48.4KHz).

I have read a lot of posts reagarding problems when connecting to VMC to 1366x768 panels which often results in the desktop being overscanned on the panel. I would really like to run the HDMI output to the panel (for HDCP) at 1080i so that scaling only occurs once using the Panasonics internal scaler which I feel is very good. I would also like to avoid "tweaking" the video setting with custom settings.

I have never used a VMC, but I suspect that overscan is not a problem in Media Centre mode as the interface is customised for this. However, I would also like to use the normal Windows mode and am concerned that I may not be able to utilise the desktop space correctly.

I would welcome any feedback from other users who may have similar systems in regard to the following:

1. How much overscan can be expected at 1080i or 720p and how does this affect the functionality of the Windows interface (Start menu, taskbar bar etc)

2. Can VMC be configured so that the Windows desktop is reduced in size while still maintaining 1920 x 1080i at standard timings using the Catalyst drivers or other utility?

3. Would anyone recommend using the 1280 x 720p setting instead of the 1920 x 1080i setting. This means scaling HD content twice (once in VMC and again in panel)?

Thanks to all in advance.

Fred


VMCDVR-MS

[aceman]

Firstly welcome fred, The first and foremost thing that you need to keep in mind is that the Panasonic 50PX600A is a tv and not a computer monitor. It has less pixels than a monitor a quarter of it's size, meaning you will always have issues with overscan etc.

As far as VMC is concerned on that particular tv you would set the resolution to 720p. This way VMC will scale itself perfectly on the panasonic tv. As far as the windows desktop is concerned you would most likely need to use 1280 x 720 but text will never look as sharp on a tv than it will on a computer monitor. If using your tv for the normal windows desktop is important to you then I would suggest looking at a 1920 x 1080 resolution panel.

[fredpan]

Hi Aceman,

Thanks for the warm welcome and your advice.
Do you know how much overscan I can expect at 720p and 1080i?

Fred

[aceman]

Sorry for the late reply, it's hard for me to say as I have a 42 inch 1024x768 screen. My Vista desktop background picture has the sides and top and bottom cut of due to overscan but the taskbar fits along the bottom correctly. The fact that it's only 1024x768 will means that it will never look as sharp as a computer monitor.

You can tweak settings quite easily so the whole panel is filled but what you see on it will always be inferior to a computer monitor. As I said earlier if you will be using the normal windows desktop a lot then get a 1920x1080 panel as this will be much better on the eyes for text etc.

Hope this helps!

[neilg]

Hi there,
I have a GA-MA78GM-S2H and a Panasonic 32" 700A LCD which is native 1366 x 768.
I run it at 720p across HDMI which at default is obvisously smaller than the actual panel size. There is then a slider for overscan / underscan in the Catalyst settings which you can use so image fills the whole of the LCD panel.
Windows desktop is fine and not overscanned, but as per previous posts is not as sharp as using a monitor, but since I mainly use from sofa not a problem.

[fredpan]

Hi all,

Thanks for the feedback. Can't wait to build this system now :-)

Fred

[fredpan]

Hi Again,

Does anyone who has this board know if it can do 720p and 1080i at 50Hz without messing around with custom setting?

Also if anyone has this board with Pany 50PX600A I would really like to know:

- if you can see the BIOS , BOOT and Vista startup screens using the HDMI output
- Does it suffer from the display output stopping when switching from HDMI to another input?

Thanks in advance!!