Does anyone have experience with streaming HD media to a flat-panel TV
#1
I have a pretty decent computer with a pretty decent video card and I'd like to use it to serve HD video to a 42" 1080p flat panel TV.

http://www.bfgtech.com/bfge96512gte.aspx
http://www.amazon.com/Panasonic-TH-42PZ77U...V/dp/B000V5DK2O

Those are links to the video card and the TV. The video card has dual DVI outputs, and the TV has HDMI inputs. I have a DVI-to-HDMI cable.

I can get video to the TV, but my problem is that that the TV seems to scale everything. I've selected it as a 1920x1080 secondary monitor, but there is about a 2" gap from the edges of the screen to the video and my TV is scaling everything to fit in the reduced space. I have no way of knowing what the actual resolution is, but it certainly isn't 1080p. The same videos played on my computer monitor are very sharp and crisp.

Does anyone have a media center PC and uses it to serve up 1080p media to a TV that can help me? I'm totally out of my element on this one.
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#2
Quote:I can get video to the TV, but my problem is that that the TV seems to scale everything. I've selected it as a 1920x1080 secondary monitor, but there is about a 2" gap from the edges of the screen to the video and my TV is scaling everything to fit in the reduced space. I have no way of knowing what the actual resolution is, but it certainly isn't 1080p. The same videos played on my computer monitor are very sharp and crisp.

Try switching between "16:9" and "Just Scan" modes on your TV, they may be named slightly differently.
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#3
Quote:Try switching between "16:9" and "Just Scan" modes on your TV, they may be named slightly differently.
Some TVs have a mode called "Dot by dot" or something similar for those inputs where it renders the display pixel-for-pixel from the input. That's the mode I use on my Sharp LCD TV.
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#4
Quote:I have a pretty decent computer with a pretty decent video card and I'd like to use it to serve HD video to a 42" 1080p flat panel TV.

http://www.bfgtech.com/bfge96512gte.aspx
http://www.amazon.com/Panasonic-TH-42PZ77U...V/dp/B000V5DK2O

Those are links to the video card and the TV. The video card has dual DVI outputs, and the TV has HDMI inputs. I have a DVI-to-HDMI cable.

I can get video to the TV, but my problem is that that the TV seems to scale everything. I've selected it as a 1920x1080 secondary monitor, but there is about a 2" gap from the edges of the screen to the video and my TV is scaling everything to fit in the reduced space. I have no way of knowing what the actual resolution is, but it certainly isn't 1080p. The same videos played on my computer monitor are very sharp and crisp.

Does anyone have a media center PC and uses it to serve up 1080p media to a TV that can help me? I'm totally out of my element on this one.

It does the same thing on my TV. I have a 63" Toshiba and output on my video card in HD to my TV, but the screen on the TV is about 2" smaller than the actual screen size. Annoying. I changed the resolution in my video card setting to make the screen a bit larger, but still can't get it closer than 2" from the edges. If you find out how to fix this, let me know too:)
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#5
I had a chance to play around with this and I finally got this working correctly by playing around with the Nvidia settings. The problem I was having was due to the fact that Nvidia likes to have monitor 1 on the left side, and my main computer monitor isn't on that side. My computer is to the right of the HDTV. I was erroneously setting a screen resolution of 1680x1050 on my HDTV instead of 1920x1080.

Once I realised this, I just had to set the Nvidia drivers to "dual view" with the HDTV as monitor 2 and my main monitor as #1, and just mentally adjust for when I drag windows over to the right (which ends up on my left, where my HDTV is).

Holy cow I just confused myself again by typing this out.

The point is I got it to work correctly, and I can send 1080p video to my 1080p HDTV. Now I just need to figure out the best way to send audio over to the HDTV's audio setup. I bought a pair of audio RCA cables and a headphone-to-RCA audio adapter, but I get the feeling that I should be using one of these fancy digital audio ports instead.
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#6
Quote:but I get the feeling that I should be using one of these fancy digital audio ports instead.

Yes, either an S/PDIF Digital or an Optical (TOSLINK) connection will send all but the highest quality signal (they can't handle Dolby TrueHD or DTS HD codecs), while a standard headphone jack will only be 2 channels and have more signal problems. Over short runs the two are pretty equal; over long runs optical degrades less.

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#7
Quote:Yes, either an S/PDIF Digital or an Optical (TOSLINK) connection will send all but the highest quality signal (they can't handle Dolby TrueHD or DTS HD codecs), while a standard headphone jack will only be 2 channels and have more signal problems. Over short runs the two are pretty equal; over long runs optical degrades less.

This sucks. My computer has both optical and digital outputs, but my home theater amp doesn't. It's kind of a basic "home theatre in a box" made by Philips, so maybe it's time to upgrade that.
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#8
Quote:I had a chance to play around with this and I finally got this working correctly by playing around with the Nvidia settings. The problem I was having was due to the fact that Nvidia likes to have monitor 1 on the left side, and my main computer monitor isn't on that side. My computer is to the right of the HDTV. I was erroneously setting a screen resolution of 1680x1050 on my HDTV instead of 1920x1080.

Once I realised this, I just had to set the Nvidia drivers to "dual view" with the HDTV as monitor 2 and my main monitor as #1, and just mentally adjust for when I drag windows over to the right (which ends up on my left, where my HDTV is).

I don't get it. I have my monitor and T.V. set up as CLONE with the Custom Resolution of 1920x1080 for my Toshiba 63" HDTV and 1280x1024 for my 20" LG flat panel, yet the output from my computer is still about 1" smaller than the edge of the screen on the Toshiba... no matter what! I don't quite understand what I'm doing differently than you are.
"The true value of a human being is determined primarily by the measure and the sense in which he has attained liberation from the self." -Albert Einsetin
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#9
Quote:I don't get it. I have my monitor and T.V. set up as CLONE with the Custom Resolution of 1920x1080 for my Toshiba 63" HDTV and 1280x1024 for my 20" LG flat panel, yet the output from my computer is still about 1" smaller than the edge of the screen on the Toshiba... no matter what! I don't quite understand what I'm doing differently than you are.

I tried messing around with the clone setting, and I'm pretty sure it is using the 1280x1024 resolution you set for your LG monitor and applying it to the HDTV.

Have you tried using the dual view setting like I did?
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#10
Quote:I tried messing around with the clone setting, and I'm pretty sure it is using the 1280x1024 resolution you set for your LG monitor and applying it to the HDTV.

Have you tried using the dual view setting like I did?

No. I'll give it a shot in a few minutes after I catch up on my daily reading.
"The true value of a human being is determined primarily by the measure and the sense in which he has attained liberation from the self." -Albert Einsetin
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#11
Quote:No. I'll give it a shot in a few minutes after I catch up on my daily reading.

Huh, it worked. Nice. Only prob I'm having now is that the projected image is about 1/2" from the top of the T.V. so I want to move it. NVidia can only move the image around if it's CRT and I can't seem to find any image moving tool on the control panel. And I can't find any control for moving the image on my T.V. either... Oh well, at least it covers 95% of the visible screen now.
"The true value of a human being is determined primarily by the measure and the sense in which he has attained liberation from the self." -Albert Einsetin
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#12
Quote:Huh, it worked. Nice. Only prob I'm having now is that the projected image is about 1/2" from the top of the T.V. so I want to move it. NVidia can only move the image around if it's CRT and I can't seem to find any image moving tool on the control panel. And I can't find any control for moving the image on my T.V. either... Oh well, at least it covers 95% of the visible screen now.

Are you certain that you have set your HDTV resolution correctly? If it's the top part that isn't showing, then maybe it's anchored correctly at the bottom and your TV just has some pixels to spare. I'm not an expert on this, but I do know that a lot of HDTVs don't do a pixel-by-pixel thing and have their own funky resolution, and then just scale everything.

Try setting a custom resolution for your TV that is a few pixels taller.
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