Laptop to TV

Yesterday, I finally found a good reason to connect my laptop to the TV,
namely watching something on BBC iPlayer with someone else in the comfort of
my living room. That worked OK-ish, but I found I couldn't get the picture
to display full screen on the TV. Although I set the player to full screen
mode, the TV display still had about a 2 inch black border all the way
round. Is that normal, or should I be able to view a bigger picture? If
so, how please?

In case it helps, I have a current model Panasonic 26" LCD TV, and the
laptop is a Compaq Presario 700 running Windows Vista Home Premium..

Thanks for any advice or information.

"Norman Wells" wrote in message
...
Yesterday, I finally found a good reason to connect my laptop to the TV,
namely watching something on BBC iPlayer with someone else in the comfort
of my living room. That worked OK-ish, but I found I couldn't get the
picture to display full screen on the TV. Although I set the player to
full screen mode, the TV display still had about a 2 inch black border all
the way round. Is that normal, or should I be able to view a bigger
picture? If so, how please?

In case it helps, I have a current model Panasonic 26" LCD TV, and the
laptop is a Compaq Presario 700 running Windows Vista Home Premium..

Thanks for any advice or information.


aspect ratio mismatch.

"Norman Wells" wrote in message
...
Yesterday, I finally found a good reason to connect my laptop to the TV,
namely watching something on BBC iPlayer with someone else in the comfort
of my living room. That worked OK-ish, but I found I couldn't get the
picture to display full screen on the TV. Although I set the player to
full screen mode, the TV display still had about a 2 inch black border all
the way round. Is that normal, or should I be able to view a bigger
picture? If so, how please?

In case it helps, I have a current model Panasonic 26" LCD TV, and the
laptop is a Compaq Presario 700 running Windows Vista Home Premium..

Thanks for any advice or information.



Hi,


Not sure how you may have connected your TV.

However, it is possible that the "viewport" of the TV output is limited.
I.e. often they cannot or will not display resolutions above 1024x768, and
this is significantly over the analogue capacity (SCART, S-Video, etc.) of
the connection method used (anyhow and of analogue TVs).

Thus, you may find changing the resolution of the TV out display (or primary
display as appropriate - you can do this just temporarily whilst connected
to the TV), will result in the whole of the screen being used or being able
to be used. I think 640x480 or 800x600 is the absolute maximum of any
reality for analogue PC to TV links.

Otherwise or additionally, you may wish to explore or examine the advanced
options of your display (card) drivers... often these contain quite advanced
configuration tools or options for all sorts of things including lots for TV
out options, etc. On a related theme, sometimes downloading updated or
bespoke drivers for your display hardware (e.g. Nvidia or ATI, etc.) will
give you access to such massively increased or improved control and
configuration options for all of the display card, but particularly in your
case in relation to TV out functions, etc.

Hope that helps.


Best wishes,





News Reader




--- news://freenews.netfront.net/ - complaints: ---

Yesterday, I finally found a good reason to connect my laptop to the TV,
namely watching something on BBC iPlayer with someone else in the comfort of my living room. That worked OK-ish, but I found I
couldn't get the picture to display full screen on the TV. Although I set the player to full screen mode, the TV display still
had about a 2 inch black border all the way round. Is that normal, or should I be able to view a bigger picture? If so, how
please?

In case it helps, I have a current model Panasonic 26" LCD TV, and the laptop is a Compaq Presario 700 running Windows Vista Home
Premium..

Thanks for any advice or information.

There are many ways you can connect a PC and a TV together. At this point
we don't even know if the interface is digital or analogue.

--
Graham.

%Profound_observation%

"Norman Wells" wrote in message
...
Yesterday, I finally found a good reason to connect my laptop to the TV,
namely watching something on BBC iPlayer with someone else in the comfort
of my living room. That worked OK-ish, but I found I couldn't get the
picture to display full screen on the TV. Although I set the player to
full screen mode, the TV display still had about a 2 inch black border all
the way round. Is that normal, or should I be able to view a bigger
picture? If so, how please?

In case it helps, I have a current model Panasonic 26" LCD TV, and the
laptop is a Compaq Presario 700 running Windows Vista Home Premium..

Thanks for any advice or information.




have you set the laptop resolution to that of the tv ?



--
Gareth.

that fly...... is your magic wand....
http://dsbdsb.mybrute.com
you fight better when you have a bear!

Norman Wells wrote:
Yesterday, I finally found a good reason to connect my laptop to the TV,
namely watching something on BBC iPlayer with someone else in the
comfort of my living room. That worked OK-ish, but I found I couldn't
get the picture to display full screen on the TV. Although I set the
player to full screen mode, the TV display still had about a 2 inch
black border all the way round. Is that normal, or should I be able to
view a bigger picture? If so, how please?

In case it helps, I have a current model Panasonic 26" LCD TV, and the
laptop is a Compaq Presario 700 running Windows Vista Home Premium..

Thanks for any advice or information.


I have had this occasionally when feeding my TV off a laptop (via svideo
connector). I think they get it wrong occasionally. Something to do
with taking a 4:3 programme, cropping it to 16:9 for broadcast and then
cropping it again to get back to 4:3.

Andy

On 18/03/2010 18:12, Norman Wells wrote:
Yesterday, I finally found a good reason to connect my laptop to the TV,
namely watching something on BBC iPlayer with someone else in the
comfort of my living room. That worked OK-ish, but I found I couldn't
get the picture to display full screen on the TV. Although I set the
player to full screen mode, the TV display still had about a 2 inch
black border all the way round. Is that normal, or should I be able to
view a bigger picture? If so, how please?

In case it helps, I have a current model Panasonic 26" LCD TV, and the
laptop is a Compaq Presario 700 running Windows Vista Home Premium..

Thanks for any advice or information.

Update to the latest driver for your graphics chipset.
Set the laptop screen resolution to the same as the resolution of the TV
screen.
Some graphics chipset drivers handle this better than others.
The ATI chipset on my Acer laptop works very well.
Dave
--
Blow my nose to email me

News Reader wrote:
"Norman Wells" wrote in
message ...
Yesterday, I finally found a good reason to connect my laptop to the
TV, namely watching something on BBC iPlayer with someone else in
the comfort of my living room. That worked OK-ish, but I found I
couldn't get the picture to display full screen on the TV. Although
I set the player to full screen mode, the TV display still had about
a 2 inch black border all the way round. Is that normal, or should
I be able to view a bigger picture? If so, how please?

In case it helps, I have a current model Panasonic 26" LCD TV, and
the laptop is a Compaq Presario 700 running Windows Vista Home
Premium.. Thanks for any advice or information.


Not sure how you may have connected your TV.

OK, it's via the small D-shaped connector on both the laptop and the TV, and
I'm using a standard computer to monitor cable. Not sure what the technical
name is.


However, it is possible that the "viewport" of the TV output is
limited. I.e. often they cannot or will not display resolutions above
1024x768, and this is significantly over the analogue capacity
(SCART, S-Video, etc.) of the connection method used (anyhow and of
analogue TVs).

The TV is 1366 x 768. The laptop's default resolution setting, which is the
highest it seems to go, is 1280 x 800, but that gives no signal on the TV
when that is connected. I have to reduce the resolution on the laptop to
get any picture on the TV, and the only one that doesn't distort the picture
making circles into upright ellipses is 800 x 600, which is what I used, but
that gave the reduced picture size.

The chipset in the video driver tells me it's the 'Mobile Intel (R) 965
Express Chipset', if that helps.


Thus, you may find changing the resolution of the TV out display (or
primary display as appropriate - you can do this just temporarily
whilst connected to the TV), will result in the whole of the screen
being used or being able to be used. I think 640x480 or 800x600 is
the absolute maximum of any reality for analogue PC to TV links.

Could you expand on that please. Why is there a maximum? What happens if
you exceed it?


Otherwise or additionally, you may wish to explore or examine the
advanced options of your display (card) drivers... often these
contain quite advanced configuration tools or options for all sorts
of things including lots for TV out options, etc. On a related theme,
sometimes downloading updated or bespoke drivers for your display
hardware (e.g. Nvidia or ATI, etc.) will give you access to such
massively increased or improved control and configuration options for
all of the display card, but particularly in your case in relation to
TV out functions, etc.

I'll try that when I have a spare moment, but suspect that I probably have
the latest version already. I haven't been able to find any
appropriate-looking configuration tools though.

Hope that helps.

Yes, thanks. Do you have any other suggestions based on the further
information above though?

Andy Champ wrote:
Norman Wells wrote:
Yesterday, I finally found a good reason to connect my laptop to the
TV, namely watching something on BBC iPlayer with someone else in the
comfort of my living room. That worked OK-ish, but I found I
couldn't get the picture to display full screen on the TV. Although
I set the player to full screen mode, the TV display still had about
a 2 inch black border all the way round. Is that normal, or should
I be able to view a bigger picture? If so, how please?

In case it helps, I have a current model Panasonic 26" LCD TV, and
the laptop is a Compaq Presario 700 running Windows Vista Home
Premium.. Thanks for any advice or information.


I have had this occasionally when feeding my TV off a laptop (via
svideo connector). I think they get it wrong occasionally. Something to
do with taking a 4:3 programme, cropping it to 16:9 for
broadcast and then cropping it again to get back to 4:3.

I don't think it was cropped. It seemed to be a 16:9 image, but just quite
a lot smaller than the full area of my TV screen.

Graham. wrote:
Yesterday, I finally found a good reason to connect my laptop to the
TV, namely watching something on BBC iPlayer with someone else in the
comfort of my living room. That worked OK-ish, but I found I
couldn't get the picture to display full screen on the TV. Although
I set the player to full screen mode, the TV display still had about
a 2 inch black border all the way round. Is that normal, or should
I be able to view a bigger picture? If so, how please? In case it
helps, I have a current model Panasonic 26" LCD TV, and
the laptop is a Compaq Presario 700 running Windows Vista Home
Premium.. Thanks for any advice or information.

There are many ways you can connect a PC and a TV together. At this
point we don't even know if the interface is digital or analogue.

OK, understood. I've replied more fully to News reader's post, but it's via
the small D-shaped connector on both usually used for monitors. So, I guess
it's digital?