PC on 1080p LED TV looks horrible at 1080p.

[Fred_Ward]

I have my PC plugged into my 1080p LED TV via HDMI and the picture looks horrible. It looks very over saturated, like the contrast is way out. Bad fleshtones and grainy picture. As soon as I lower the resolution (now using 1600 x 900) it goes normal and looks fine. I think it has something to do with up-scaling (whatever that is) because when I turn on the GPU up-scaling with my graphics card control panel, the lower resolutions look as bad as the 1080. Anyone know if I can fix it so 1080p looks normal?

Graphics card:

ATI Radeon 5700

TV:

Insignia 40" LED 1080p 60hz.

 

[sm625]

HDMI is basically trash. Always has been. Use a dvi to hdmi cable. Difference is night and day on every LCD tv I've ever owned.

 

[SimianR]

I have my PC plugged into my 1080p LED TV via HDMI and the picture looks horrible. It looks very over saturated, like the contrast is way out. Bad fleshtones and grainy picture. As soon as I lower the resolution (now using 1600 x 900) it goes normal and looks fine. I think it has something to do with up-scaling (whatever that is) because when I turn on the GPU up-scaling with my graphics card control panel, the lower resolutions look as bad as the 1080. Anyone know if I can fix it so 1080p looks normal?

Graphics card:

ATI Radeon 5700

TV:

Insignia 40" 1080p 60hz.

On my samsung TV, when you select the source input I had to change the default name of the source from --- to "PC". Then the picture looked great. See if you can do something similar on the Insignia. On some TV's for whatever reason the default config for connected devices seems to be different than when a PC is connected.

 

[Fred_Ward]

HDMI is basically trash. Always has been. Use a dvi to hdmi cable. Difference is night and day on every LCD tv I've ever owned.

Thank you! The VGA cable worked! The Displays control panel in Windows 7 doesn't recognize the tv or initially didn't allow for 1920 x 1080 but when I changed the resolution with the ATI control panel everything clicked. Just had to enable GPU up-scaling to fit the image to the screen.
The only problem now is when I plug my computer monitor into the second VGA output on my graphics card, it stops output on the first port. It would be nice to be able to have a second monitor. Any ideas?

 

[cmdrdredd]

Might depend on the TV. Looks fine on my Sony

 

[poofyhairguy]

HDMI is basically trash. Always has been. Use a dvi to hdmi cable. Difference is night and day on every LCD tv I've ever owned.

It has nothing to do with the cable connector and everything to do with all the processing TVs do to a video image to appeal to an average consumer.

Using a VGA cable is basically just forcing the TV to run in "game/PC mode." Most tvs let you enable a game mode on any source though, even HDMI ones.

 

[JeffMD]

HDMI is basically trash.

And you have no idea what you are talking about. Hdmi is a fine standard and the fact that the same electronics can talk both display port and hdmi is proof at how diverse and robust the video connection standard has become.


His problem is he is using a tv that he has not bothered to configure properly (default settings are for motion pictures, not computer images). Also I do find TVs don't like trying to display small fonts, they bleed together. Running Ultra wide over hdmi right now though, its perfect. (ok bad choice of words, it is perfect.. until 4k comes around).

 

[cmdrdredd]

Also, DVI and HDMI are electronically identical and compatible except for the fact that HDMI carries audio.

 

[Blitzvogel]

HDMI is a pretty standard issue for 4 and 5000 series Radeons. Had the same issue with a 4670, 5850, and 5570 on the same TV.

 

[tential]

It has nothing to do with the cable connector and everything to do with all the processing TVs do to a video image to appeal to an average consumer.

Using a VGA cable is basically just forcing the TV to run in "game/PC mode." Most tvs let you enable a game mode on any source though, even HDMI ones.

Most do. Ran into the same issue as The op though on an older model and vga was the only thing I could do to fix it which sucked. Although I had issued with hdmi cutting in and out so I was screwed lol.
My Linux box uses the hdmi now which sucks even more since I need to see that info and I can't but no biggy!

 

[Fred_Ward]

His problem is he is using a tv that he has not bothered to configure properly (default settings are for motion pictures, not computer images). Also I do find TVs don't like trying to display small fonts, they bleed together. Running Ultra wide over hdmi right now though, its perfect. (ok bad choice of words, it is perfect.. until 4k comes around).

That doesn't explain the fact that at a lower resolution it looks fine.
There is only one Custom settings preset and I use that to disable settings Game mode leaves on. Someone suggested I rename the HDMI input on the TV 'PC' but that didn't fix it either.

 

[96Firebird]

Look for scaling/overscan options on both the TV and in the AMD control panel.

 

[Blitzvogel]

Look for scaling/overscan options on both the TV and in the AMD control panel.

It's best to avoid the TV's scaling options, and just find the AMD options that can be found in Catalyst Control Center > My Digital Flat-Panels > Properties (Digital Flat-Panels). The "Enable GPU scaling" check box is half way down and should enable an option to set the scaling via a slider. In my experience, I always had to set the slider to maximum to get proper full screen.

 

[MongGrel]

HDMI works just fine here.

I do not use it for sound though.

TOSLINK for that on the main, but is just the way I roll I guess.

 

[MongGrel]

It's best to avoid the TV's scaling options, and just find the AMD options that can be found in Catalyst Control Center > My Digital Flat-Panels > Properties (Digital Flat-Panels). The "Enable GPU scaling" check box is half way down and should enable an option to set the scaling via a slider. In my experience, I always had to set the slider to maximum to get proper full screen.

This.

 

[hawtdawg]

HDMI is basically trash. Always has been. Use a dvi to hdmi cable. Difference is night and day on every LCD tv I've ever owned.

This is about the most misinformative post i've read on anandtech.

 

[skipsneeky2]

Had at one point a 37'' Insignia,had to be hooked up with the vga cause nothing on gods green earth could get that thing to remotely look decent with hdmi.Using Nvidia here.Guess that ended up being fine cause i ended up hooking up a 1,000 watt Sony Blu-Ray entertainment system to the HDMI port to provide the audio.

Crazy how HDMI is the gold standard for connectivity to devices but hooking one up to a pc just doesn't work at all or out of the box.Still relaying on vga today is insane.

 

[KingFatty]

Maybe you could benefit from a different HDMI cable - perhaps the one you are using is faulty/noisy to the point of corrupting the signal?

 

[StrangerGuy]

I think is has everything to with TV built-in image processing or non-optimal output settings in the video driver.

 

[Makaveli]

Everyone is correct its not the connector.

I also own a Samsung smart TV and you have rename the input and go into the settings and turn off some of the features.

 

[Gunbuster]

i ended up hooking up a 1,000 watt Sony Blu-Ray entertainment system

I could not resist looking that up. Wow, they actually call it "Sony 5.1 Channel 1000 Watts 3D Blu-ray DVD Surround Sound Home Theater System with Full HD 1080p..." on the amazon listing.

I hate to break it to you but a plastic Sony HTIB coming in at 30 LBS for the entire setup is NOT putting out 1000 Watts.

 

[Makaveli]

I could not resist looking that up. Wow, they actually call it "Sony 5.1 Channel 1000 Watts 3D Blu-ray DVD Surround Sound Home Theater System with Full HD 1080p..." on the amazon listing.

I hate to break it to you but a plastic Sony HTIB coming in at 30 LBS for the entire setup is NOT putting out 1000 Watts.

Best buy Marketing... :biggrin:

 

[skipsneeky2]

Best buy Marketing... :biggrin:

Sony marketing,bought it at Wal-Mart. I never cranked it even halfway so the wattage even if not correct was more then sufficient.

I no longer have it but it was awesome while i did.

 

[sm625]

This is about the most misinformative post i've read on anandtech.

You can think whatever you want to think, but my comprehensive real world experience has shown me that the image quality of hdmi-to-hdmi connections from a pc or laptop to a tv has very often been bad. I've seen it on over two dozen setups. There is obviously some kind of ugly rescaling going on. The text looks simply bad. There will be bands of dark spots and bands of blurry spots, it just looks horrible, even after fiddling with every goddam setting on the system for hours. By going from DVI to hdmi, I am able to resolve that issue without messing around with settings for hours. So as a rule, if you dont want to waste hours or days trying to figure out what in the frack is going on and why the text over hdmi-to-hdmi looks so bad, then you just avoid hdmi-to-hdmi if at all possible. If it works great for you on your setup, then good for you, but you aint gonna sit there and tell me that all the crap I've seen over the years isnt a real issue.

 

[Sabrewings]

My HDMI->HDMI connection on my 55" Sammy TV looks just as good as my previous machine's DVI->HDMI connection. Same TV. Old machine had no HDMI port so I used an adapter.

Theory defeated. Electrically HDMI and DVI are identical. DVI can in fact send audio (contrary to a previous statement) as I was able to send audio out my DVI port through the adapter, and into the HDMI port on the other end.