Video card issues

October 27, 2008 7:14 AM

I bought the ATI Sapphire HD 3870 a couple of months ago. I was especially stoked about the HDMI out feature that would allow me to play audio from my DVD receiver (Samsung HTQ80T/XAA). Well it does that but, the resolution is blurry. Changing the display quality on the pc doesn't help. My PC is connected to the HDMI IN on the receiver and the HDMI OUT on the receiver is connected to my monitor. DVD's look fine but the PC looks horrid. Not sure if it's the Home theater, or the card. Any Ideas as to what I can do about this? thanks.
posted by Student of Man to technology (6 answers total)

My LCD TV Model is LN-S2341W. It's a 720p Samsung.
posted by Student of Man at 7:24 AM on October 27, 2008

Are you running in the native resultion of your panel?

720p can mean either 720 lines of resolution or 768. Make sure you know which one your TV supports and adjust your display settings on the PC to match.
posted by WinnipegDragon at 7:37 AM on October 27, 2008

Just checked it out. Your native resolution is 1366 x 768. Make sure your PC is displaying at this resolution or all sorts of interpolation will happen and that makes the image look crappy.
posted by WinnipegDragon at 7:39 AM on October 27, 2008

Changing the resolution results in a blank screen for 30 seconds and then back to the original resolution. Vista asks you to confirm (click OK) once it switches the resolution in which case you would only do so if your screen is not blank. I read somewhere that HD is only good for DRM or encrypted content.

"All the HDTV resolutions are actually LOWER than their PC counterparts AND most HDTV displays have native resolutions determined according to PC standards". I can't wrap my head around this as I don't know what exactly a native resolution means. Nonetheless it feels like this might be the rub; if it's true.

I'm guessing my card doesn't really support HDTV's and the HDMI out is a gimmick. But that is fine because my TV has a DVI in on the back. What I really want is to have the 5.1 audio. Although I have Digital Out on my PC and a Digital IN on my receiver, the jack on my pc is a Co-axial and the jack on my reciever is a optical fiber.

The DVI connection directly from the card is much sharper. Even if I connect the card directly to my TV using the HDMI cable, it's still blurry. The reason I wanted to use the HDMI cable is because it requires less wiring in my already heavily wired room. But I'm willing to use the DVI + audio wires as I realize this HDMI thing simply may not give me a clear picture, period.
posted by Student of Man at 1:21 AM on October 28, 2008

Also when I go to Control Panel, 1366 x 768 is not one of my options, The closest ones are 1360 x 768 and 1280 x 768. Upon second try, it displayed @ 1360 x 768 the image is quite smaller although there is still a some interpolation. I suppose theres no way to customize your resolution to exact specifications. I'll fiddle with this cheesy "control center" software that came with this card. Thanks for your help.
posted by Student of Man at 1:58 AM on October 28, 2008

Overscan is the bane of HD output from a PC to HD tvs. Search around and you'll see what I mean.
posted by pharm at 4:16 AM on October 28, 2008