One of the problems you may encounter when setting up your XBMC on your TV is that it doesn’t fill the entire screen or portions of the picture are flowing off the screen. If that ends up being the case, there is an easy way to correct the problem either using the software for your video card or settings in XBMC.
The setting we will be tweaking is referred to as overscan. Ideally you won’t need to make adjustments to this because it can affect the picture quality, but at the same time you want to make sure things fit correctly on your display.
ATI Video Calibration:
If you install the ATI VISION Engine Control Center, you should be able to correct how much of the screen is used for the picture being outputted by the computer, and unlike the next solution, this affects how the entire OS is displayed… which is probably what you want.
Just open up the ATI VISION Engine Control Center, navigate to the My Digital Flat-Panels, and click Scaling Options. From there you can drag the overscan slider around until the picture fits your TV correctly.
XBMC Video Calibration:
You can adjust how XBMC fits to your TV directly from the XBMC interface if you’re not able to do it from within the software provided by your video card manufacturer. This is different than the driver configuration mentioned above because this only effects XBMC rather than how the entire OS is displayed.
To calibrate your display in XBMC go to Settings -> System -> Video Output -> Video Calibration and you should be able to adjust the amount of overscan:
CyberNet’s XBMC Guides:
- XBMC: Introduction to Our Upcoming Guides
Our introduction provides some of the deciding factors for switching from Windows Media Center to XBMC. - XBMC: Build Your Own HTPC
Our extensive guide on the hardware we chose for our home theater PCs (HTPCs), the cost, and some tips on choosing the hardware for your own HTPC. - XBMC: Prepare and Optimize Windows 7
A helpful list of tips to optimize the performance of Windows 7 so that the system is able to offer as many resources to XBMC as it can. - XBMC: IR Receiver and Remote (Harmony, Xbox 360, and More)
If you want your HTPC to operate like a set-top box you’ll definitely want to get a remote control configured, and for me this was a critical step so that I wouldn’t have to be concerned about less tech-savvy users trying to use my TV. - XBMC: Share and Sync Media/Settings Between Multiple XBMC Installs
Configuring XBMC to share settings between multiple instances means you’ll be able to stop a show in one room, and seamlessly pick up where you left off in another room. - XBMC: Fit the Picture to Your TV with Overscan
If XBMC doesn’t fit your TV screen perfectly there are a couple of steps you can take to get it just right. - XBMC: Installing Skins
How to tweak the appearance of XBMC so that it looks the way you want it to. - XBMC: Custom Home Screen Menu Backgrounds
Make the backgrounds of your chosen skin/theme a little more interesting by having it flip through artwork from your favorite TV shows and movies. - XBMC: Dynamic Weather Backgrounds
If you’re using the Aeon MQ 3 theme you can have it use dynamic wallpapers that change based on the time of day and current weather conditions. - XBMC: SMB on Mac OS X 10.7 (Lion)
I use a Mac to serve up files to my XBMC instances running on Windows, and so my preferred protocol for sharing files is SMB. This guide explains how you can get a XBMC-compatible version of SMB running on Mac OS X 10.7 Lion. - XBMC: Adding Media Sources
Learn how to add your media to XBMC and turn on the appropriate content scrapers. - XBMC: Troubleshoot Buffering Issues
Trying to troubleshoot buffer issues in XBMC can be quite a pain, and so I lay out some of the most common culprits. - XBMC: Test Your HTPC with High Bitrate Sample Videos
Want to see how well your HTPC performs? Throw some of these high bitrate 1080p sample videos at it. - XBMC: More Advanced Settings
Configure some of the settings that you won’t find anywhere in the GUI. - XBMC: Stream Hulu, Food Network, and More
Thanks to add-ons you can stream videos from some of your favorite sources including Hulu, Food Network, HGTV, TWiT, and more. - XBMC: AirPlay on Windows
Send videos from your iOS device to any XBMC instance with very little configuration. - XBMC: Web Interface and Chrome Extension
As long as you are on the same network as your XBMC box you can control it from any browser using the built-in web interface, or you can install a Chrome extension to make it even easier. - XBMC: iPhone and iPad Remote
If you own an iPhone or iPad you can enjoy one of the best XBMC remote control experiences I’ve seen, and it will only cost you a few bucks. - XBMC: A List of Our Guides, Plus Helpful Wiki and Forum Posts
A recap of all the guides we’ve written as well as useful wiki and forum post from the official XBMC.org site. - XBMC: Free and Official iOS Remote for XBMC Released
This is the free and official XBMC remote control iOS app (optimized for both the iPhone and iPad). It will let you easily control all of the XBMC instances in your house as long as they are all on the same network. - XBMC: Running XBMC on Startup in Windows 8
Learn how you can make XBMC start automatically when Windows 8 boots. - XBMC: Send YouTube Videos From Chrome to XBMC
Send YouTube videos from your PC to any XBMC instance in a single click. - XBMC: Aeon MQ 4 Skin
If you’re looking for one of the best and most popular XBMC skins the Aeon MQ 4 is a great choice. - XBMC: Android Widget Remote Control
Control multiple instances of XBMC without ever having to open an app on your Android device!
I bought your exact hardware in hopes I would be problem free. That’s not the case. I’m trying to connect my htpc (your exact build) to my Vizio 37in LCD through the DVI-D out converted to HDMI. The picture look horrible. I had the htpc setup with a 22″ Viewsonic through the VGA just to test and install things and it looked great. Now on my LCD the text is grainy, XBMC is laggy and choppy. Any suggestions? I updated all my drivers, optimized overscan, tried all resolutions. Something isn’t right. Any help would be appreciated!
Why are you using the DVI-D out and converting it to HDMI? If you have all of the same hardware as I do the unit has HDMI out, which means no conversion would be necessary.
It’s interesting that you are seeing XBMC being laggy and choppy. I’ve never had that, though I have to say that I disabled a lot of stuff on the operating system to optimize for performance. I don’t, for example, have an antivirus running and disabled Windows Defender. I only use these for XBMC so the odds of me getting infected are extremely low.
This is something everybody needs to know, but no one mentions. That is, how you navigate the video calibration screen. I was trying to ‘calibrate’ (adjust overscan) my 1080p TV from my MBP, and the damned corner ‘L’s were both invisible. I could get the one in the upper left to come down to the exact corner of the TV screen with the mouse moving the giant size “for dummies” cursor. But I could not get the cursor far enough to the bottom right to make the second adjustment. It was really maddening and I could find nothing about how to do this in the very poor XBMC documentation or at any of the forums.
I finally discovered, completely by accident, that you can navigate from upper left to lower right to square by hitting and then use the cursor (arrow) keys to adjust each corner.
This is totally counter-intuitive. In any program I’ve ever used, on any platform, the cursor keys are always used for navigation, sometimes the tab key, and the enter key for selection, not navigation ever. Just one of the many inconsistencies in the XBMC UI, I’m afraid. The enter key is also used to view and select items from the ‘crippled’ dropdown boxes throughout the UI.
I see that the CSS ate the word enclosed by ”, corner brackets.
Correction:
I finally discovered, completely by accident, that you can navigate from upper left to lower right to square by hitting ‘enter’ and then use the cursor (arrow) keys to adjust each corner.