How do I fix overscan on my HDMI HDTV?

Question

I've connected a HDTV with HDMI on my Radeon 4670, using the open source ati driver. However there is "overscan" which cuts off a bit of each edge of the screen, about the size of the gnome-panel. How can I fix this so it displays the full resolution?

Answer 1

The issue was with the TV, not Ubuntu.

• Samsung TV - go to Menu / Picture / Picture Options / Size / Screen Fit (instead of 16:9).
• LG TV - go to Settings / Picture / Aspect Ratio / Just Scan (instead of 16:9)
• Sony TV - hit Home button, go to Settings / Screen / Display Area / Full Pixel
• Sharp TV - hit View Mode button, select "Dot by Dot" or "Full screen"

Answer 2

As the above comments are saying, the problem is most likely due to the TV and not the driver.

However, if you have a Sharp Aquos TV, "Dot by Dot" mode might not be available in the menu as Pakman mentioned; I couldn't find an option for enabling "Dot by Dot" mode anywhere.

Instead, I solved the problem by discovering that my remote has a dedicated "Wide Mode" button for this setting, which looks kind of like this: |<>|. Press it to toggle from Stretch to Dot by Dot mode.

Answer 3

Fixing HDMI overscan on a Samsung TV

I connect my laptop to the HDMI input of my Samsung TV. Due to overscan, The TV annoyingly puts part of the image outside the visible screen, even though the resolution is correctly set to 1080p. Here is a solution:

• Press Source on your remote
• Move down to your HDMI source and press Tools
• Select Edit name Scroll down to PC and select that one

Your screen goes blank for a second – and mission accomplished: the overscan is disabled.

Answer 4

I Have struggled with this problem for longer than I care to say! This may help if you have a NVidia graphics card, and Ubuntu 14.04.

1. Go to the Ubuntu software center, search for NVidia drivers and download "Nvidia X Server Settings".

2. Once downloaded, click on the Nvidia icon, and select x server display configuration.

3. Once there, simply slide the underscan slider until the desired size is achieved.

Answer 5

I'd suggest checking your graphics card driver software, I know ATI comes with overscan options. In windows there was a program called power strip that I used to fix this on mine with Windows 7.

Answer 6

Both right,

New TVs are set to allow overscan, so the driver will often do that very overscan that is available when set to a desktop resolution.

So, the driver for the video card - might - have an overscan setting to resolve this if lucky, or as Hew found out you might be able to set the TV to display the incoming signal without overscan.

Try the video display driver first, then if no luck, try your TV settings. It is best to correct in the driver setting first, instead of setting a fixed display.

Answer 7

I was attempting to solve this problem this afternoon. A Sharp TV would not let me change selection from "stretch" to "dot by dot". It gave me a message:

No input selection available

A solution that served my purposes (not losing part of the screen) was to switch to the lower resolution of 1360 x 768 instead of 1920 x 1080.

Since I just wanted to run emacs on the TV, losing some resolution was not a big deal.

This is kindof a dumb workaround, but since no-one else seems to mention it, I figured this answer would contribute.

Answer 8

As someone before me wrote: This isn't a software problem. Many TV models behaves differently if the HDMI port input label is set to "PC" or something else.

Make sure that your TV knows what's connected to the other end of your HDMI cable

On my 47" LG LCD I can set it at Menu->Option->Input Label

Answer 9

i've just fixed the issue by changing in the property disply modi to 1920x1080 60Hz. it was 59Hz.

this solved my problem, without doing with the registry.

Answer 10

Here is the answer for displays connected to NVIDIA GPUs similar to John's answer but with more precise control.

1. This may require NVIDIA drivers as opposed to nouveau drivers installed by default (I'm not sure if it does).
2. In Ubuntu App Center install (if not already installed) NVIDIA X Server Settings or run sudo apt install nvidia-settings
3. Open "NVidia Settings" app.
4. Pick "X Server Display Configuration" page on the left.
5. Click "Advanced..."
6. Suppose your screen resolution is width×height and you want to not use L pixels on the left, R pixels on the right, T pixels on the top, B pixels on the bottom. Then compute W = width - L - R, H = height - T - B and set the settings as follows:
   • ViewPortIn: WxH (this is how many pixels Ubuntu will use for windows, panels, etc.)
   • ViewPortOut: WxH+L+T (this is where to display those pixels on the actual screen. Having the same WxH means that there is no scaling involved, which is typically what we want because scaling typically decreases image quality).
   • Panning: WxH (to not use the panning feature, this should be the same as ViewPortIn)
7. Press "Apply". Your screen will update with new settings and a timer will be displayed. If you don't press "Ok" the screen will automatically revert to the previous settings, which is a nice feature to allow you some trial and error.
8. If you are happy with the results, you may want to permanently save these settings. Thankfully, the same "NVIDIA Settings" window has the feature "Save to X Configuration File". Now you want to save the resulting file to "/etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/10-nvidia-monitorname.conf" (you may replace "monitorname" with the actual name of the monitor, so you can better recognize this file later, but it is up to you). However, I got some permission issues doing that. If you get them too, here is a workaround: use "Show preview..." button instead of "Save", then copy the text, and save it manually to the desired location (e.g. start your favorite editor with "sudo" to do that).
9. Now reboot to see if it worked as intended (/etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/10-nvidia-monitorname.conf won't be read by the system until you reboot or reload xorg configs by some other means).

Answer 11

In my case, activating overscan on the monitor (a Philips 244E) didn't fully solve the problem (the monitor's space was not fully covered). I had to deactivate overscan on the monitor and do it using the AMD catalyst control center (gksudo amdcccle).

Answer 12

I using ubuntu 13.10 and had the same overscan problem using a 32" dynex led tv. Im using a shuttle computer with 3rd gen intel graphics 2500 connected buy hdmi cable. I went into my advanced video settings on my tv and turned off overscan (problem fixed)

Answer 13

ASPECT Button.

Try switching the aspect ratio of your tv by clicking "aspect" button on your controller(tvformat:auto-scan). I connect my dell laptop to a 22" tv and it works.