HD 101: Overscan and why all TVs do it

The concept of overscan seems particularly difficult for geeks to comprehend — normal people usually don’t care to even understand it — and some even get down right confrontational when they first learn that all TVs do it. But the fact is that even the latest LCDs and plasmas don’t show all 2 million pixels of a 1080p signal out of the box. Instead about 3 percent of ‘em are cropped off the edges (as illustrated by the red line in the image above) and the remaining pixels are scaled to fill in all the pixels of your HDTV. The real kick in the head is that the reason isn’t a good one, especially when you consider the advanced technology that’s available today. So in this HD 101 we’re going to cover what overscan is, why it’s there, and finally how to “fix” it.

Other HD 101 goodness:
What is ATSC, PSIP, QAM, and 8-VSB?
How to use Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD with your PS3
Why there are black bars on HDTVs

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HD 101: Overscan and why all TVs do it originally appeared on Engadget HD on Thu, 27 May 2010 14:43:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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