PC -> HDMI -> TV = washed out text?

[Frank]

I tried unsuccessfully getting a clear picture on my "old" tv, a 32", 1360x768 Samsung through the HDMI connection with a 3 meter cable. The text was all washed out and nearly unreadable. From my laptop (nVidia 330M) as well as my main pc (Radeon HD6850).

I expected the problem to be that Microsoft in all their wisdom has decreed that for WHQL certification only native HD modi are to be supported by your graphic card (ie: 720i/p and 1080i/p), while the display was 768.

So, I bought a new tv ( ), a 40" full-HD (1080p) Samsung 40D503. But the text looked just as bad.

After increasing the font size and ClearType settings in Windows, changing the pixel format to RGB4,4,4, selecting "Game modus" on the tv and reducing the "Sharpness" to 0, the text is readable. But still worse than when using a plain VGA cable on the old tv. And the new one only has HDMI.

It seems HDMI is not very usable for using your tv as a large monitor.

How can I fix that?

 

[AlphaWolf]

HDMI works fine for me on my samsung HDTV. Text is quite readable. So I don't believe HDMI is a the problem.

 

[Frank]

How did you configure everything?

btw, Skyrim looks gorgeous and very sharp.

 

[AlphaWolf]

I don't bother to configure anything. Just plug in the HDMI cable and switch the display and sound to TV (my laptop has a 1080 display). I really wish I could be more helpful but I don't think HDMI is necessarily the heart of the problem, unless it's the way it's implemented on your vid card.

 

[Xenus]

I'd try a differed cable. HDMI isn't supposed to have such cabling issues but you never know.

 

[Davros]

you are running the tv at native res ?

 

[Bludd]

Some TVs have text mode in addition to game mode.

 

[Lightman]

I bet it's picture scaling!

I had similar problems on my 52'' till I went into advanced GPU settings and adjusted picture scaling to match my screen space.

 

[Frank]

After a lot of fiddling, everything looks cool.

I think the main thing is, that details (ie. lines) that are too thin (ie. single pixel) tend to get "corrected" by the tv, aggressively so. I tweaked and turned off as much "correcting" as I could find, and now things look very nice.

Still, it's rather stupid, as setting source to "PC" worked great with the previous tv, when the source was VGA or DVI. It's only when you use HDMI that the tv decides to "optimize" the heck out of everything, no matter if you tell it that the source is a PC and it should show the whole picture.

Edit: so it's not only Microsoft who is brain-dead about it, Samsung is as well.


Anyway, with a 40" tv a meter from my face, I had to reduce the mouse sensitivity in Skyrim, otherwise I get nauseous. Talk about immersion

 

[nutball]

Edit: so it's not only Microsoft who is brain-dead about it, Samsung is as well.

Yeah I've had a couple of Samsung TVs and, whilst I've found them to be pretty good overall, on their default settings they do do some horrible things to text and desktop.

They also seem to change how they interpret the R/G/B values they get sent depending on whether the HDMI connection is labelled 'PC' or something else. This is the 0-255/16-255 thing, and given that the PC end of things can also adjust what it outputs it's easy to get crummy blacks, or greys instead of blacks. Bloody nightmare.

 

[Frank]

Another thing that is irritating is, that it asks every two hours to press "enter" on the remote, or it'll turn itself off.

While I changed that setting, it gets reset after... turning the tv back on. And it doesn't automatically sleep when there is no input and wake up when there is. You have to turn it back on manually.

I'll have to call the Samsung support about that.

 

[AlphaWolf]

It does that even if you're watching a movie?

My samsung (7000 series) has no auto sleep at all.

 

[djskribbles]

Also disable edge-enhancement (essentially the same as sharpness) if you haven't already.

 

[Gubbi]

After a lot of fiddling, everything looks cool.

I think the main thing is, that details (ie. lines) that are too thin (ie. single pixel) tend to get "corrected" by the tv, aggressively so. I tweaked and turned off as much "correcting" as I could find, and now things look very nice.

Almost same setup, same problem. Samsung 32" LED LCD connected through HDMI.

I have an ATI 4890, it defaulted to downscaling the image by 5%, which almost cancelled out the default 6% the TV would upscale. The result is a blurry mess.

Make sure you have the "Fit to screen" option set on your TV. Then make sure that overscan scaling is 0% on your GPU.


Cheers

 

[Frank]

Well, I called Samsung, and of course they said: "That's strange, it should work right away, you're the first customer that reported a problem with that. You should update your firmware and buy a new cable." Duh.
After explaining that I tried a laptop, two different videocards in my pc and two tv's, that HDMI is digital and that I want the tv to just display the picture as-is, they of course told me that that isn't possible, and they cannot change that just for me. Goodbye.
And after asking if they at least could tell the development department that it makes no sense to have a "PC mode" that doesn't work, they told me of course that they cannot do that, but that my complaint will be logged.

All in a friendly way, of course.

 

[Gubbi]

Well, I called Samsung, and of course they said: "That's strange, it should work right away, you're the first customer that reported a problem with that. You should update your firmware and buy a new cable." Duh.
After explaining that I tried a laptop, two different videocards in my pc and two tv's, that HDMI is digital and that I want the tv to just display the picture as-is, they of course told me that that isn't possible, and they cannot change that just for me. Goodbye.
And after asking if they at least could tell the development department that it makes no sense to have a "PC mode" that doesn't work, they told me of course that they cannot do that, but that my complaint will be logged.

All in a friendly way, of course.

According to the manual for the 40D503, the pixel for pixel mapping option has been renamed to "Screen fit". Enable this and remove any overscan compensation (if any) in your graphics driver and you should have a clear picture.

And yes, it is mind boggling stupid, I spent 3 weeks figuring it out a couple of years back. Sxotty had the same problem a year or so ago (look in the Video Technology, Displays, & HTPC sub forum)

Cheers

 

[Frank]

According to the manual for the 40D503, the pixel for pixel mapping option has been renamed to "Screen fit". Enable this and remove any overscan compensation (if any) in your graphics driver and you should have a clear picture.

And yes, it is mind boggling stupid, I spent 3 weeks figuring it out a couple of years back. Sxotty had the same problem a year or so ago (look in the Video Technology, Displays, & HTPC sub forum)

Cheers

Thanks, those were the first things I changed. That helps with the resolution, but not with all the post-processing going on.

I'll have to see if edge-enhancement are disabled, but I think I disabled everything I could find.

With a larger font size and selecting a thick ClearType variant it looks ok. But it's not yet as sharp as it should be.

 

[Gubbi]

Thanks, those were the first things I changed. That helps with the resolution, but not with all the post-processing going on.

Mine is permanently set to Game Mode, which disables all image processing.

Cheers

 

[Frank]

Mine is permanently set to Game Mode, which disables all image processing.

Cheers

Yes, that works great, unless I use HDMI (and the new tv only has that).

But looking at the manual you linked, I think that it is different from the menu on my tv. So perhaps a firmware update will fix it after all.

 

[Frank]

I found the problem, but not the solution:

After reading the manual, I noticed that on my tv the HDMI inputs are labelled opposite of how they're shown in the manual. I thought that was surely the solution, but it wasn't.

Instead, what I thought was "PC mode" was actually "Game mode" (I use Dutch language settings). Even worse, although the verb "PC mode" is on multiple pages in the manuals, there is no way to select it.

The previous tv simply had a button on the remote and a selection in the menu. Both only worked for VGA and DVI input. And, alas, this tv has none. And no button or menu selection, either. So the current quality level will have to do.

Very irritating.