Problem with 21:9 TV

[Tassadar]

Hi all,

 

One of my customers that have purchase an HTPC to me has a problem with his 21:9 TV.

 

The TV is a led pfl-7956, with 21:9 format and resolution 2520x1080. The HTPC "wears" an AMD APU A8 5500, so it integrates a Radeon VGA.

 

The issue is that HTPC allows a maximum resolution of 1920*1080, and of course, it makes black vertical bars to be on both sides of the screen.

 

According to some comments given to me in the spanish forum ForoDVD, it's impossible to send to the TV its native resolution of 2520x1080, they told me that the procedure is sending 1920*1080 and use the different zooms of the TV to scale the image.

 

But maximum resolution of HDMI 1.4 is 3840x2160 at 30hz, so theorically the HTPC should be capable to send to the TV its native resolution, even if its at a framerate below 60hz.

 

My customer insists that when he connect a Bluray reader or other devive, the image takes the whole screen without the need of using zooms, but with the HTPC he gets vertical bars on both sides since resolution is 1920x1080 instead 2520x1080.

 

I thought it could be a problem of drivers, I thought it would be needed installing on Windows a TV drivers that allows que operative system to recognize this resolution, but I've been looking for those drivers with no result.

 

¿Someone with a PC screen or a TV with this resolution can lend me a hand?

 

Many thanks in advance

 

Tassadar

Edited November 30, 2013 by Tassadar

[ZeroHour]

I have a 21:9 monitor, movies are shot in 21:9 not 16:9 which is why it doesnt have black bars, the display just scales the picture and it fills the screen perfectly as the ratio is the same.

Ask the customer to try a tv show on bluray and I suspect they will see the black bars again as most/all tv shows are shot for tv's which are 16:9, movies are shot for cinemas which are 21:9

I think a lot of cards are limited to outputting up to 1080 with hdmi but not further, 21:9 on pc's for example requires a dual link dvi cable to hit the full resolution.

Edited November 30, 2013 by ZeroHour

[Arthur]

But maximum resolution of HDMI 1.4 is 3840x2160 at 30hz, so theoretically the HTPC should be capable to send to the TV its native resolution, even if its at a framerate below 60hz.

The HTPC will be able to, but the TV won't support it. The list of display resolutions below is taken from the TV manual. There's no way to get around this limitation other than buying a PC monitor and using that as a screen for the HTPC.

 

http://i.imgur.com/lQIZsIx.png

 

My customer insists that when he connect a Bluray reader or other device, the image takes the whole screen without the need of using zooms

Do the Blu-rays he is playing have an aspect ratio of 2.35:1 or 2.40:1? The latter is very close to the TVs aspect ratio of 2.39:1 (21:9) so would not require zooming as @ZeroHour mentioned above.

 

Perhaps try a TV show like Game of Thrones (1.78:1) or a Blu-ray with an aspect ratio of 1.85:1 like Despicable Me 2.

Edited November 30, 2013 by Arthur