1080p TV Will not correctly display 720p from my pc

I have a Panasonic 46" plasma tv with a native resolution of 1920x1080, hooked up to my pc (8800gt gpu) via a dvi to hdmi cable. At the native resolution it works perfectly. However from my couch I cannot read anything! Been trying for hours to get it to format correctly at 1280 x 720. No matter what I do, for some reason when at 720 it is a lil bit too big for the screen. I do not understand this. If I go into the nvidia control panel to resize the desktop, it changes the resolution. Basically the problem is at every other resolution it is out of proportion. Any help will be much appreciated. Thanks.

Hey Skandranon, Have you tried altering the DPI at the native resolution? Go to Control Panel > Display > Set Custom text size (DPI) From the drop down choose 200%. That should double the size of everything on your screen. As for other resolutions, you want a 16:10 ratio. That would include 1280 x 800, 1440 x 900, 1680 x 1050 and 1920 x 1080. You might have to manually add one of those resolutions by clicking the "Add Resolutions…" button in the nVidia resolutions page. I hope that helps Cheers Nahumi

I didn't think to change the dpi, that is a great idea. Should have tried that alrdy, doh I thought 1920x1080 was a 16:9 aspect ratio.. am I mistaken? Gonna play with it some more when I get home. Thanks for your reply!

Double Post

Changing the DPI does not solve the problem at all. It makes it look jacked, and more importantly it changes it for both my monitors not just the one I have the issue with.

Hmmmm, that makes things a bit more difficult. And I just noticed I was looking at the wrong resolutions on the chart, so you're right, you need a 16:9 ratio.

This is a nice little image to show you all the different types of resolutions out there.

All I can suggest is that you try 1280 x 720 again, or 1366 x 768 and make sure that the TV's resolution is set to auto. The only problem with that though is that the quality won't be great, especially considering the size of the TV.

Although, if all you're wanting to do is watch some movies or something, you could make your tv and extension of the desktop, instead of a mirror desktop. Also, if you want to surf the internet from your couch you can change the font size in most browsers. I know that Google Chrome has an option for that in the "Under the Hood" tab. Just click on "Change Font and language settings". Internet Explorer will let you zoom in too, although the interface will stay the same. And I'm not sure about Firefox, but I'm fairly sure you can do something similar.

I suppose the only problem with this is that you would have to start any movies/games/browsers at the other monitor first, and then go to your couch.

But if you're having quality problems with all resolutions and settings, it sounds like the TV could be to blame. The refresh rate could be too low, although this is unlikely.

Let me know how 1366 x 768 looks and I'll see if I can think if something else if it still looks wrong.


Cheers
Nahumi

Love the chart Ya, this is why tvs just dont make good monitors. Thanks for you suggestions and help. . Wont have time to mess with it again this week, worry about it later.

No Problem, Let us know if you get it working.