Over Scan Problem in Windows Media Center

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MILGEO

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Over Scan Problem in Windows Media Center

#1

Post by MILGEO » Fri Dec 16, 2016 12:16 am

I recently bought a Samsung 4K TV and connected it to my WMC PC. I had been using a smaller TV along with 2 other TV's connected by way of Ceton Echo extenders. The new 65" TV was cutting off the sides (mostly) as well as the top and bottom. This was most noticeable on news shows with a ticker and logo. It would sometimes cut off part of people's faces (left side, right side). The strange thing is that it only seemed to effect the TV directly connected to the PC. The TV's connected to the Ceton's were fine. The picture adjustment in the TV "screen fit" was grayed out and when clicked on said "unavailable". I spent many hours and days trying to find the problem. Samsung's tech support didn't help after 1.5 hrs. I must have read over 100 posts on various forums and sites. I did find a very helpful post on the missing remote about setting the monitor to TV instead of the other options. The screen shot showed exactly the over scan problem I was having, but when running through the settings it didn't correct the problem. I tried removing one of the Ceton extenders and connecting it directly to the TV. The picture was perfect. I have found that many people having this problem. They might not all be for the same reason but I was very surprised that the fix was so hard to find! The problem I had was that the hidden zoom settings in Windows Media Center must have been changed (likely by a Windows Update). To get to the zoom settings you need to open a program in WMC and right click it. You will be given the program details and there is a small arrow on the right. You need to scroll to the right until you see the zoom setting. There are 4 settings. Zoom 1-Zoom 4 . The default is zoom 1 with just a little over scan. Mine was set at zoom 4. After setting it to zoom 1 everything looks fine! I can't believe how much time and effort I spent fixing this problem. I thought I would have found the solution on this forum. I hope this post will save other people the time and effort I spent looking for the answer to this problem.

dmagerl

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#2

Post by dmagerl » Fri Dec 16, 2016 1:57 am

I dont have a 4K TV but on my Samsung if the HDMI input is named anything with the word "PC" in it, the TV disables a lot of settings. One of the disabled settings is "screen fit". So if you still cant set it to screen fit, this might be the reason.

As far as I can tell from doing a lot of googling the TV assumes you are gaming and sets a lot of settings to default values based on that assumption, a lot of them having very bad impacts when playing video. So I guess I'm saying dont ever name an HDMI port with the word PC in it.

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#3

Post by DaveInPa » Fri Dec 16, 2016 4:08 pm

It's not really a problem. It's a feature :lol:

I have an "aspect" button on my remote just for changing the zoom. I like it to remove black bars on the sides of older broadcasts at 3:4 resolution.

MILGEO

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#4

Post by MILGEO » Fri Dec 16, 2016 7:58 pm

You're right! I didn't name the connection as PC the TV did. When moving it to different HDMI ports, it would name it PC again. I just tried editing the name to Blu Ray and the screen fit is now available. It really doesn't change the picture very much from the zoom 1 setting which pretty much solved my problem. I can't believe that Samsung support couldn't tell me this! Instead they had me rerun the set up, disconnect and measure the length of the HDMI cable, connected remotely to my TV, and never solved the problem. As I said it had the 4 hidden zoom settings and mine was set at zoom 4. I didn't try putting it back to zoom 4 and then applying the screen fit. Maybe I'll try that just to know. This is where I found the first solution on the zoom settings; https://whatsonmypc.wordpress.com/2011/ ... -center-2/
I hope it's ok to post links on this forum. Another post I found to be helpful was on missingremote forum but I couldn't seem to comment on that thread. Maybe cause it's 5 years old. It displayed exactly the problem I was having, the last screen shot of the pool cues; https://www.missingremote.com/guide/mis ... dia-center . But setting Media Center to TV didn't solve the problem. The remote that came with my UN65KS8000 is tiny with hardly any buttons at all. It will let you open the interface on the TV where you can scroll for input sources, settings, etc. It's very different than the candy bar style remote which I have for the 40" LED Samsung that this replaced. That set has zoom settings, screen fit and about 50 buttons on the remote. Interestingly, Samsung did ask me to reconnect that set which also had the over scan issue. I hadn't noticed it sitting so far back. I think the zoom setting was changed very recently with the last Windows update.
Thanks, for the input!

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#5

Post by Space » Fri Dec 16, 2016 10:02 pm

I've never seen the zoom setting in WMC change other than by physically changing it myself, but i guess anything is possible.

I always keep my TV in the equivalent of the "Screen Fit" setting and 1080p. The idea that part of the picture is missing bothers me, so this makes sure that overscan is disabled for all formats (1080i, 720p, and 480i).

As for the 4 zoom settings in WMC, I also almost always keep it at the "Zoom 1" setting. This displays the entire picture with nothing cut off.

The only other WMC zoom setting I use sometimes is "Zoom 2", but only when I am watching a video that is in SD at 4:3 ratio and uses letterboxing (black bars on top and bottom). This setting simply cuts off those black bars and shows the letterboxed content magnified to fit the full 16:9 HDTV screen.

The other two zoom settings in WMC are useless to me, as they both cut off parts of the actual picture and in the case of "zoom 4" distort the picture on the sides (it is meant to stretch a 4:3 picture to fully fill a 16:9 screen, but it also cuts off parts of the picture on the top and bottom).

I don't mind having black bars on the left and right of shows that were originally in 4:3, that is the way they were originally, so that is the way I want it! I hate that some broadcasters are taking old shows that were originally in 4:3 and zooming in to them before they even get to you, cutting off the top and bottom of the picture so that people don't complain about the black bars (like the old episodes of "The Simpsons" that were broadcast recently during the marathon). In that case you have no choice but to watch them with part of the original picture missing.

MILGEO

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#6

Post by MILGEO » Fri Dec 16, 2016 11:12 pm

I didn't know where the zoom settings were previously. I don't understand why Microsoft would make them so hard to find! I've had other settings change in programs after an update. In Quickbooks I suddenly couldn't download from my bank anymore (on a different Windows 7 PC). Their tech support tried to sell me a newer version. After spending a lot of time checking things out, I discovered that the online status deep in the settings had been switched off. This was after a program update. No one else uses that PC and I didn't shut it off. I've had other things change after updates like assigned short cut keys no longer working etc. That's why I suspect the zoom setting was changed after a Windows update. No one else touch's the settings on that PC. I built it about 4 years ago specifically to use as a media center DVR. I would have certainly noticed it being that over zoomed before this. The TV's on the Ceton extenders were not effected.

After dmagerl gave me the tip on renaming the HDMI input to get screen fit to be available, I went back to the zoom settings to see what the effect would be with it set at zoom 4. When I re enabled screen fit, it helped but part of the screen was still partly cut off. Tried it with zoom 2. Same thing. So without setting it to zoom 1 then applying screen fit, part of the picture was still cut off. Screen fit only slightly changed the zoom 1 picture.

I very rarely record anything that's not HD. Some old shows that were shot in 4:3 are listed as HD by the cable company and don't have black bars showing but I'm sure that they have manipulated it to cut off part of the picture.

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#7

Post by Space » Fri Dec 16, 2016 11:33 pm

Zoom settings are available the same as Closed Caption settings, in the "Info" menu while the show is playing. You can get to the info menu with a remote control by pressing the "i" (info) button (or ctrl-i on the keyboard), or by simply pressing the left or right directional (arrow) keys on the remote (or the arrow keys on the keyboard). Once it is displayed, you can press the left and right directional buttons (or arrow key) to see the various menu options available and then use the up/down directional keys to pick the option you want.

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CyberSimian

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#8

Post by CyberSimian » Sat Dec 17, 2016 12:49 pm

I had an overscan problem with my previous TV -- a 32-inch Toshiba LCD dating from 2005. The TV was sufficiently old that it did not have any of the "screen fit" options that modern TVs have. The overscan was so severe that almost all of the Windows task bar was hidden beneath the bezel.

The solution that I adopted was to use the "Resize the Desktop" facility provided by the "Nvidia Control Panel". Instead of using 1280x720, I resized it to 1220x690. This gave one or two pixels of overscan all around.

A tiny amount of overscan can be beneficial. In my DVD collection I have "Alien 4" or "Alien 5", which has a bright white vertical line down the extreme right edge of the picture. This is very distracting if visible (since the movie has lots of dark scenes), but the line is completely covered by the bezel when using a few pixels of overscan.

-- from CyberSimian in the UK

MILGEO

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#9

Post by MILGEO » Sat Dec 17, 2016 3:38 pm

Thanks for the tip on the Info button Space! I usually only have used it to read program details on a program selected in the guide and currently airing (selecting it would run the program). I doubt I'll be changing the zoom setting very often unless it mysteriously changes again but I do use closed captioning. Some shows just seem to have poor sound clarity especially for voice. Other times I'd rather have closed captioning out of the way if not needed. I've always gone to Tasks, settings, TV, closed caption to get to it. Good shortcut! I don't know what all the other closed caption settings available there are for ie; cc 1, cc 2, and so on. I've never seen them in the settings menu. I tried a couple but they didn't seem to do anything except change the language to Spanish even though English was still displayed.

MILGEO

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#10

Post by MILGEO » Sat Dec 17, 2016 4:12 pm

Before upgrading to a 65" 4K set, my 40" Samsung led (about 3 years old, free replacement for 5 year old set) I had different screen options that I would use for desktop or programs. I could toggle them when needed. Part of the desktop would be cutoff. Task bar, icons, etc. Most often I was watching programs on that PC so I didn't have to change them often. I did do some video editing on it before building a different PC for most of my PC needs around 2 and a half years ago when support for XP expired. My Media Center PC has Intel 3rd gen. integrated graphics. I thought about adding a graphics card to it but I don't think it would give me any great improvements. I'm still only getting 1080P programs and I really would hate to lose all my recordings if they become unavailable due to copy right issues.

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#11

Post by Space » Sat Dec 17, 2016 7:19 pm

MILGEO wrote:Thanks for the tip on the Info button Space! I usually only have used it to read program details on a program selected in the guide and currently airing (selecting it would run the program). I doubt I'll be changing the zoom setting very often unless it mysteriously changes again but I do use closed captioning. Some shows just seem to have poor sound clarity especially for voice. Other times I'd rather have closed captioning out of the way if not needed. I've always gone to Tasks, settings, TV, closed caption to get to it. Good shortcut! I don't know what all the other closed caption settings available there are for ie; cc 1, cc 2, and so on. I've never seen them in the settings menu. I tried a couple but they didn't seem to do anything except change the language to Spanish even though English was still displayed.
The other CC settings there are just different streams of Closed Captioning, which are rarely used. In general, I just go to that small CC screen and select the default (just press the OK/Enter button), this toggles between CC on and CC off.

I have the settings in the main CC menu set in such a way that the CC looks more like DVD captions than like the typical CC (white text on black background). I set the background to be transparent and the text to yellow, it looks pretty good and doesn't cover up as much of the picture as the black background does.

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