HDMI connected monitor is blurry and seems out of focus

Pete4 · 01 Jun 2014

I don't know about OP problem, but I had similar issue with my 47" TV hooked up to computer and I investigated it deeply few years back. It came out that for some very strange and cheap reason some TV's don't support full 1080p RGB info. The 1920 pixel video received over HDMI is converted into some stripped down 960 pixel as far as RGB color info goes, processed and then expanded back to 1920pixel (in other words color info is shared by two adjoining pixels). This processing is fine for video and pictures, but looks horrible when it comes to small font computer text display. There is simple test for this, if OP wants I could look for it. I don't remember "why" details anymore but VGA looks better.
If OP problem is related to mine and he will be using his TV as a main display, no video card will solve this issue. Another problem here is that this info is not revealed in any manufacturers specs and one would have to go to TV forum or test himself to see if given TV has that limitation, but probably most less expensive ones do, except top of the line and dedicated computer monitors.

Boozad · 01 Jun 2014

My daughters have their rig hooked up to a TV, it used to be a 24" JVC HD ready model and the picture was absolutely awful, we had to scale the resolution to even read anything. Now I've bought them a Samsung 5 Series and while you can get away with 1080p it's still slightly blurred. Games and videos look great but Windows isn't 100% to echo what Pete4 just said. They are running an HD7850-DC2T which looked perfect on my Samsung SyncMaster so it is down to the TVs.

MaxS · 02 Jun 2014

Pete4 - If you can find the test that would be great! It's been bugging me for a while now

Boozad - That sounds very similar to the problem I have, when set to 1080p I cant even read the text on the screen so maybe its just a JVC problem

Pete4 · 02 Jun 2014

OK, this is quick review what chroma subsampling is in general: Chroma subsampling - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Some TV's have PC or game setting that passes full chroma (color info), but many don't, so check if you have that setting on yours. I had HDD crash few months back, I thought I restored everything, but I can't find my TV folder, so will take some time to look for it in back ups, sorry, but the test was very simple: set of vertical color lines, right next to each other without any borders. If you have no chroma subsampling, the colors will change from red to blue to green etc immediately. If you do have color subsampling then there will be one pixel line in between color stripes with mix of colors from both sides, since 2 pixels share color info.
This is very old (4yrs) thread on AVS forum talking about the issue:
4:4:4 Chroma needed for HDTV as a computer monitor?
maybe this will give you better idea of what am I talking about.
The reason VGA is looking better is because it is assumed to be computer signal and bypasses most of the signal processing inside TV, but VGA being analog has less sharpness than pure digital video over HDMI, to begin with.