HDMI is the standard for the best audiovisual output from a computer or A/V device.  But, as I found out recently, there may be times when a standard VGA cable may serve better.

I recently hooked up my XPS 8300 Dell desktop to my HDTV. I wanted to see how Windows Media Center, built into Windows 7, would actually display on a large screen HDTV. Lo and behold, the picture was pretty good, but the first thing that I noticed was that there was an inch or so of black around the output on the screen.

I went into my HDTV to see if there was an adjustment I could make for what is known as pixel mapping.  You see, televisions for years have been over scanning. That means that the picture that is sent from whatever device to the TV is actually larger than the screen can output. So, TV’s adjust and/or crop a small amount off of the picture that they get to compensate for this over scanning.  In fact, while the screen resolution for my TV is 1080i the picture wasn’t sharp at all and you could easily see that the lettering looked squiggly rather than having straight, legible form.   Clearly, straight HDMI was not the best input.

To compensate for this overscanning, some TVs will have a setting in their menu to enable 1:1 pixel mapping. That setting tells the TV to make the picture display on the TV screen just like it does on your monitor, completely filling the screen.

My particular HDTV, a Vizio m470VT, does not have this feature. But it does have a VGA input for PCs.  Any adjustments for PCs on my HDTV are only available using this port. But, this does allow my TV to act just like a monitor. It will not, however, carry the digital sound like the HDMI cable would, so I need to connect my S/PDIF cable from my computer to my A/V receiver.

The picture that I got using a VGA cable was just as clear, colorful, and sharp as any HDMI cable output.

So, if you’re having a problem with your HDMI cable, and your TV does have the DVI or VGA inputs, don’t be afraid to try one of those.

© copyright 2013 Mark W Smith, all rights reserved.