DVI vs HDMI when it comes to color / What is overscan?

[CooLWoLF]

Just got a new Asus 1080p monitor and I hooked it up via HDMI because I read something about the color intensity being better with this type of connection. Is this true?

Also, I had to enable overscan to 0% in order to get my monitor to display in full screen. Can someone explain what overscan is, and does it have drawbacks, performance hits, etc?

 

[k1114]

Dvi can show up to 16.7 million colors, this is 8 bit per channel, srgb color space. The latest version of hdmi can go up to 281.5 trillion colors, 16 bit, ycbcr, xvycc and other color spaces. But most monitors you find will only be 8 bit so it makes no difference. Although changing color space may result in different colors being shown, the monitor is still only capable of showing 8 bit. Only professional monitors will go above 8 bit. Since you stated asus, only their pro art monitors go above 8 bit but not all of them do. Their model number starts with pa or pb.

Overscan is the extra part of an image that may not be shown which was originally an issue for crt tvs. With lcds there isn't really a need for overscan. If you want more info you could read this. http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/27/hd-101-overscan-and-why-all-tvs-do-it/

 

[CooLWoLF]

Dvi can show up to 16.7 million colors, this is 8 bit per channel, srgb color space. The latest version of hdmi can go up to 281.5 trillion colors, 16 bit, ycbcr, xvycc and other color spaces. But most monitors you find will only be 8 bit so it makes no difference. Although changing color space may result in different colors being shown, the monitor is still only capable of showing 8 bit. Only professional monitors will go above 8 bit. Since you stated asus, only their pro art monitors go above 8 bit but not all of them do. Their model number starts with pa or pb.

Overscan is the extra part of an image that may not be shown which was originally an issue for crt tvs. With lcds there isn't really a need for overscan. If you want more info you could read this. http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/27/hd-101-overscan-and-why-all-tvs-do-it/

Thanks for the info! Why do you think I had to use the overscan setting on my Asus VE247H lcd monitor then?

 

[k1114]

Hdmi was really created for tvs and sometimes just defaults to overscan.

 

[CooLWoLF]

So should I switch over to a DVI connection? Any benefit?

 

[k1114]

Either connection results in the same thing.