720p TV looks pixelated and unreadable on PC

[pcuser1045]

I use a 720p Vizio flat panel as the main display in my tri-monitor setup. I've always noticed that the other monitors (very old dells) have a far sharper picture quality than the $200 TV. I've tried changing the resolution and the screen appears very large and isn't scaled properly. However, the scaling is correct at 1920x1080 and the text doesn't look too big but the screen is very pixelated. Any thoughts? Thanks

 

[Antimatter79]

If your TV is 720p, then you need to set the resolution to 720p for the best picture quality. You should always avoid scaling if at all possible. Also, what is the resolution of the monitors you're comparing the $200 tv too? How big are all of your screens? A $200 tv likely isn't going to have a very good built in scaling engine if you're relying on that, and if your monitors are smaller than your tv, and/or they're running at their native resolution, then of course they will look sharper than the tv. It's really hard to judge what's going on with the limited information you provided, other than sending a non-native resolution to your tv.

 

[pcuser1045]

If your TV is 720p, then you need to set the resolution to 720p for the best picture quality. You should always avoid scaling if at all possible. Also, what is the resolution of the monitors you're comparing the $200 tv too? How big are all of your screens? A $200 tv likely isn't going to have a very good built in scaling engine if you're relying on that, and if your monitors are smaller than your tv, and/or they're running at their native resolution, then of course they will look sharper than the tv. It's really hard to judge what's going on with the limited information you provided, other than sending a non-native resolution to your tv.

The 32 In TV is the main display with the other 2 displays being 17 in dell 1280/1024 monitors that look excellent in comparison to the TV. I've attempted to downscale the resolution to 720p from the PC but the text becomes very large and the picture doesn't fill the screen leaving black border's. Also, the TV itself reads 1080p even with the resolution changed. Hopefully this clears things up. Thanks

 

[Antimatter79]

That's odd that your tv will show that it's receiving a 1080p signal even if your resolution has changed, when it's a 720p tv. That should not be happening unless there is something else in the signal path that is upscaling the image from your video card, such as a stereo/surround sound receiver. Is that the case, or is your PC connected directly to your tv? Also, I know you said your tv is 720p, but confirm that it's not actually 1366 x 768, which is actually fairly common for "720p" sets. If your tv is actually 768p, you need to set your PC's resolution to 1366 x 768, and see if that clear up the picture, although the picture on your 17" monitors will suffer if you need all three screens set to the same resolution.