full pixel and/or overscan on KDL-42W653A

[anmahmo86]

Hi,

Bought a KDL-42W653A this week (Richer Sounds offer it at £499 - WITH 5 year warranty!)

The question I have isn't ever going to be answered in an in-store demonstration or by a pre-sales consultant.

I have a network hard drive offering DLNA (Buffalo, but I don't think that matters). It stores .MP4 files in various resolutions.

However, the television is scaling content, is using overscan so it is missing the outer edges of pictures from DLNA. This isn't in itself too big a deal, but it *completely* messes up the quality of the picture! It rescales the picture in an imperfect way.

For example, let's say I have a .MP4 at 960x540. To show on a 1920x1080, it is is a straightforward doubling of horizontal and vertical resolution; with the picture processing on modern Bravias, it should have a very high picture quality. However, because it uses overscan, it's not quite that ratio, so the picture is vastly inferior.

If I view the same content through a Blu-Ray player with DLNA capabilities (eg BDP-S370), the television recieves a 1080P signal and DOESN'T overscan - the same picture is MASSIVELY improved.

I have this on my existing 37W5500, and was hoping it didn't happen on the new 42W653A, but alas it does 😞

A search on the Internet talks about "full pixel" (via the Wide button) and overscan, but there seems to be some dispute over whether they are the same thing (I guess they are not: a 960x540 picture at "full pixel" would only show in a quarter of the screen in the middle). 

Does anyone know how to disable overscan on either USB or DLNA?

I know digital video is a minefield (bit rates, codecs, containers), but I also know with 100% certainty overscan makes things much worse.

I don't yet have an antenna connected - "full pixel" may well be available from that source. Desirable, of course, but I want no overscan on DLNA content. My 3 year old BDP-S370 does a great job, but I paid for a 2013 smart TV as an all-in-one solution.

Kind regards,

Anwar