My HDMI output looks terrible

[HiddenZephyr]

Hello!

So HDMI output on TV looks terrible on my custom-built rig. It's a GTX770, drivers are fully updated, and the HDMI wire is known to work. I'm using a Samsung P2370HD-1 television as my main display.

The colours are just bad. It looks like anti-aliasing is disabled universally, and the colours have terrible contrast. I've already tried the Windows colour calibration to no avail (it helped a bit, but didn't solve my problems).

When I watch a youtube video in fullscreen, however, it looks just fine. It's my windows desktop and the programs that run in that look terrible. In fact, even when I put Google Chrome into full screen mode, it looks noticeably better.

Any help? Suggestions?

Thanks!

 

[clutchc]

Check your Sammy's manual. On mine, there was only one of the HDMI jacks that was designed to work well with a PC. It was explained under Connections/Connecting a PC:

"Using the HDMI/DVI Cable
1. Connect an HDMI/DVI cable
between the HDMI IN 2 jack
on the TV and the PC output
jack on your computer."

Any other HDMI jack looked bad.

 

[cst1992]

That's just-- terrible.
Any HDMI port should work equally good.
Why do they do this?

 

[HiddenZephyr]

Check your Sammy's manual. On mine, there was only one of the HDMI jacks that was designed to work well with a PC. It was explained under Connections/Connecting a PC:

"Using the HDMI/DVI Cable
1. Connect an HDMI/DVI cable
between the HDMI IN 2 jack
on the TV and the PC output
jack on your computer."

Any other HDMI jack looked bad.

Unfortunately, there's only one HDMI port with no specifications on if it's "correct" or not.

 

[HiddenZephyr]

I also noticed that whenever I fiddle with the video settings, the screen colour flashes to a good, normal colour, then changes back to the bad colour.

 

[clutchc]

Have you checked to see if there is a driver available for your HDTV? Do a Windows Update check and see if it finds a driver specifically for your TV. It found one for my AOC monitor.

Does the HDTV have a VGA (analog) connection for the PC? You could do a test and connect the gfx card to that port with a VGA cable and adapter to see if it is the same.

 

[HiddenZephyr]

I updated windows and even installed the drivers provided by Samsung onto my computer. It's really not working out well.

I stuck a laptop with HDMI into this monitor, and it was still bad. I put the laptop into another TV and the picture came back regular! In addition, I've tired a VGA - DVI connection (it's my previous configuration), and it works out fine!

I'm really starting to suspect my TV....

 

[clutchc]

Yes, it is looking like you are right. Too late to return it?

Btw, are you saying that the VGA and DVI connection to that TV is OK from your desktop PC? It's just the HDMI that is bad?

 

[HiddenZephyr]

Yep. My VGA DVI connection/converter works perfectly fine. It's just HDMI.

And this TV is almost 4 years old

 

[clutchc]

If you have a 3.5mm sound input jack on the TV, you can use DVI since the TV has that option. Then just run your sound output to the input jack with a audio cable. The DVI signal is the same digital video as HDMI.

 

[HiddenZephyr]

Ahh. So in that case there's really no advantage of the HDMI over my previous DVI-VGA + sound wire setup! Is that the case?

 

[clutchc]

If you are using a DVI input on the TV, it will be digital, just the same as HDMI. But...

If you are using a VGA adapter in the card's DVI-I port and running a VGA cable to the VGA port on the TV, you are using a converted analog signal. Analog display is slightly lower quality that digital, but probably not noticeable unless you had them side by side and knew what to look for.

The gfx card produces a digital signal. It uses an digital to analog converter to produce an analog (VGA) signal on the 4 extra pins of the DVI-I port. The adapter uses those signal pins. At the HDTV, the signal is once again converted back from analog to digital to produce the display on the flat panel digital TV. This double conversion can introduce some signal loss and noise to the image.