Tricky Question (?)

H

hoosier_daddy

New Member
Hi there,

I tried a search but had no luck, so I figured I'd post and see what kind of help I can get...thanks in advance, everyone(!)

I'm currently running a 2 monitor/LCD TV setup. I have 2 22" HP w2207h monitors that I use primarily for computing work/graphic design, both are powered by an nVidia XFX GeForce 8800GT 600M dual DVI graphics card, via a DVI to HDMI output. They run great, no problems (although I can't get the rotate the screen, go into automatic portrait mode to work but that's not the main issue now)...

My LCD TV is a Samsung 40" 1080P LCD TV, model LN-T4069F (http://www.123buydirect.com/ProdDisplay.asp?CatID=70&ProdID=1045&ExportID=4&k=LNT4069&se=CNET&p=1.00). It's driven by an nVidia XFX GeForce 8800GT 640M graphics card, also running DVI to HDMI. My computer has 4GB of DDR2 RAM, runs a Core 2 quad Q6600 @ 2.4Ghz and Windows Vista Home Premium.

Here's my problem: I have all 3 monitors set to their maximum resolution and running on extended desktop, the resolution for all is 1920x1080...this is the native resolution for both of the monitors and the TV. The monitors are fine, but unfortunately the TV is down-scaling the image so that there is a thick, 3" black border around the picture. I used the nVidia control panel and went to the "Change flat panel scaling" option...when I select "Samsung" for the monitor I have four options:
1) Use NVIDIA scaling
2) Use NVIDIA scaling with fixed-aspect ratio
3) Use my display's built-in scaling
4) Do not scale

The default selection is "Use my display's built-in scaling," and the option I need to go for is the first one: to use NVIDIA scaling, so the picture fills up the screen. Whenever I select this and try to apply it, nothing happens and the option goes back to the default "Use my display's built-in scaling." I do have the latest driver version and DirectX 10, but I'm pretty stumped at this point...I did try to see if there were any scaling options within the TV, but none that worked even remotely well.

Anyone have any idea on what else I can do? This is a great setup but unfortunately the terrific LCD TV I have is not jiving too well with my computer...

Thanks again!
 
It's definitely important to run at max res because the primary purpose for the TV is to view Blu-Ray movies (my computer has an LG Blu-Ray/HD DVD drive in it), so it needs to be at 1080P resolution ...

Thanks though! :)
 
...does the picture appear skewed or somewhat... "out of proportion"... (i.e. does stuff on the screen appear flatter/thinner than you think it should)? Have you tried NVIDIA scaling with fixed aspect ratio? Try it, and if this doesn't work, my guess is that the aspect ratio of your current resolution is different from that of your LCD TV. What's the aspect ratio of the LCD screen (probably either 4:3 or 16:9, and with your current resolution it should be the latter...)
 
hackapelite,

The picture is in the same proportion as the 22" monitors. I checked with the TV's different aspect ratio options, they are:

16:9 (which is the setting it's currently on)
4:3
"Just Scan"
"Wide Fit"

I had been trying to scale it on 16:9 but it wouldn't work, and I just tried all the various options (including the fixed aspect ratio NVIDIA scaling you mentioned) on both 16:9 and "Just Scan" and nothing worked there, either..."Wide Fit" stretches the picture too wide and 4:3 shrinks it too narrowly.

Thanks for the replies, anyone have any other ideas ?
 
Hmm...
Okay, what I'd like to know is what's the physical aspect ratio of your TV? And is the border around the picture present only on the sides, top&bottom or all around?
 
Wow man that's a nice workstation you've got there ;) ...
Back on Topic:
It seems that there's nothing wrong with the aspect ratios, resolutions and all seem to be alright... it could be some dual-card glitch I've never heard of before, but if that's the case I can't help, so... I'll go with the assumption that this is not the case.

When you try "Wide Fit", I assume that the picture is only stretched horizontally (the bars at top and bottom still remain), right?

If I were you, I'd probably try different resolutions, I know you need the max but just to see if the problem appears at different resolutions. If you already tried this, what were the results?
 
So what is the exact resolution that you're running at? According to HP those monitors run at 1680x1050 which is a 16:10 ratio. If possible, you should try to get a resolution of 1680x1050 for the monitor and 1720x1080 for the TV. If you don't have the option you might want to try this from nVidia.
 
THANKS everyone for all the help! I found the solution...I needed to use the "Resize HDTV desktop" option in the NVIDIA control panel. I tried it before but I didn't quite understand how to use it (didn't think that it worked before), but turns out that is what I needed to do instead of scaling. I'm running everything at full resolution now with no problems--except that suddenly my sound quit working which is really weird (unrelated to video, heh)...but it's definitely a pretty sweet setup and I'm happy.

Thanks again !!!
 
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