Question about overscan

[MILE]

Okay, I've jooked up my new Mac mini to my current TV which has a 720p resolution, since my new TV et won't be here for another week or so...

The Mac mini seems to have recognized it just fine and set the resolution to 1280xz20 and automatically activated 'overscan' as well...and that's my problem: Because of some technical problems with my old MBP and money being tight I can't get a new MBP before February or so and thus will be using that same Mac mini as my main computer, more or less...! Browsing the web, e-mail, Twitter and all such stuff...

Having it set to overscan stretches the desktop too far beyond visibility though so that I can't see the menu bar anymore or the Dock or the browser's status bar and so on...! :(

Now when I deactivate overscan it shrinks back but again a little too far, so that then I have a thick black border all around it...

Okay, so here's my actual question: If I deactivate overscan for the Desktop and other desktop apps, can Boxee itself still run in overscan for viewing video...?!? :confused:

Like, does Boxee override the general screen settings with its own or does it depend on what's set up in the Mac's System preferences...?!

:: M ::

[jdarnold]

You can adjust Boxee's overscan. Settings -> Appearance -> Screen and select "Video Calibration..." Then you can move the corner boxes until you just barely see them.

[MILE]

You can adjust Boxee's overscan. Settings -> Appearance -> Screen and select "Video Calibration..." Then you can move the corner boxes until you just barely see them.

Thanks, I know that...but taht wasn't what I meant...

What I wanted to know was if I de-activate overscan in the Mac's System Preferences so that it wouldn't be used within the Finder and other Desktop apps, can Boxee itself still go into overscan and use the full screen...?!

Well, I just tried it and obviously it can't...! :(

When I de-activate overscan in the Finder I have black borders all around the picture and even when I switch to Boxee the black borders remain, reducing the screen when watching video...

Too bad, but it was worth a try...and I guess I'll just have to get used to the annoyances like navigating the other apps without a visible menu bar then... :(

:: M ::

[sanXp]

I just posted in another thread, not all TVs support 1:1 pixel mapping over HDMI. If it doesn't you will have to use the VGA port. You can either refer to the manual, or try your luck with the TV settings. If you have a Samsung, you have to enable 'Just Scan', and even with that, 1:1 only works on either of the HDMI ports (I forgot which one). For Sony, if your TV has a setting, it seems like you have to set it to 'Normal' and not 'Full', at least according to the other thread. If you are reading the manual, look out for it mentioning if you can hook up a PC to the HDMI port, or at least if it supports the native resolution over HDMI.

1:1 means that you are outputting at the native resolution the TV, and the TV does not re-scale the image. You can tell if it's 1:1 if your resolution is not a nice number, like 1360x768.

[jdarnold]

yeah, X Windows (which is what both Mac OSX & Linux use) isn't really quite up to snuff when it comes to overscan on HDMI TVs. I've found some hacks that can tweak X to display more accurately on X, and not lose the 16 or so pixels around the entire screen, but I haven't gotten them to work. I don't do much work outside of Boxee once it gets hooked up to the TV, so I'm not sure how much more I'm going to try. I have a Sony SXRD 50" HDTV, but I don't see any setting for removing its overscan.