No HDMI menus

[Paris Remillard]

I know that it's not on the list of Red tested monitors, but I'm trying to get the 1280x848 HDMI setting (to get full menus, etc...) to work on a Dell 1908WFP (1440x900). No go. The video preview works fine, although it squeezes the image to fit into the 16:10 aspect ratio of the monitor. Not too crazy about that. But when I switch to the "Menus(DVI)" setting, the screen goes black. I tried to find a setting in the monitor to have it map the image pixel for pixel , but I couldn't find anything. Am I just doing something stupid wrong, or is it a fault of the monitor? Thanks.

 

[Joel Kaye]

Am I just doing something stupid wrong, or is it a fault of the monitor? Thanks.

Sounds like it could be the monitor not recognizing the resolution. I noticed I don't have a 1:1 pixel option on my Dell 1708FP either. But it does show menus properly. I have a 2405 that works too. It has either 1:1 or you can fill the screen - which actually looks pretty decent. Guess each monitor needs to be tested.

 

[Paris Remillard]

Crap. That's what I was thinking. I thought that since it's 1440x900 it might just crop the sides to get the 1280x848. I guess not. 1280x1024 it is then. If anyone knows otherwise, let me know.

Here's a question, when the 2405 scales to fill the screen, is the image squeezed to compensate for the difference in aspect ratio? And can you get the menus on the 2405? Thanks for the info.

 

[Barry Green]

Here's a question, when the 2405 scales to fill the screen, is the image squeezed to compensate for the difference in aspect ratio? And can you get the menus on the 2405? Thanks for the info.

You have three choices on the 2405:
a) you can have it fill the entire screen (which is 1920x1200, so 16:10, slightly stretched)

b) you can tell it to maintain the aspect ratio, so it will show 1280x720 stretched to 1920x1080 with a little bit of black bars at the top and bottom

c) you can tell it to go pixel-to-pixel. A 1280x848 image would thus occupy the center of the screen.

And yes, the 2405 takes the 1280x848 and shows the menus.

 

[Paris Remillard]

Thanks for the info Barry. I just went to Best Buy and plugged my camera into a few monitors, but they didn't have many in stock, so I didn't have that much to reference for comparison. One thing I found, though, was that none of them showed the image unsqueezed, either vertically or horizontally. I tried a few 1680x1050 monitors and they all showed both menus and 720p preview. But in menus mode, the image was stretched horizontally, and in 720p mode, the image was squeezed horizontally. And none of them offered a 1:1 option.

There were no 1280x1024 monitors, though, so I'm wondering if anyone is finding that the Dell 1708fp or similar are showing an accurate, unsqueezed/stretched reference image. Are there black bars at the top and bottom making it 848 lines? Or is it stretched to 1024 making the preview image squeezed. I just want an accurate aspect ratio on the preview.

The 2405 looks like it works, but I didn't want to lug around something that big.