Magnavox 37MF437B 37" 1080p as a monitor...

J

Jim Robbins

Weaksauce
Joined
Oct 9, 2006
Messages
117
Hello all!

I just picked up the Magnavox 37MF437B at my local Sam's Club 2 days ago for about $900 plus tax. It's a 37" 1080p tv and I just had to hook it the computer last night. :) I first tried it with the VGA cable, and it wouldn't let me set it to the max res of 1920x1080. Then, I used an HDMI to DVI adapter/cable and tried it on the HDMI port of the tv. It kindof worked, but the ATI X1950XTX card (on Windows XP) had some scaling option on it, and I couldn't get it to map pixel perfect. For some reason, it was stretching the image an extra 3 pixlels wide and gave a strange pixel effect on text because it was scaling. Anyway, I couldn't get it pixel perfect again...

So, next, I downloaded good ol' PowerStrip, and started playing around. As I messed with timings and widths, it seemed that I could get it to sync perfectly if I ran it a 59hz or 61hz in 1080p (which I am surprised that the screen could even handle that, or even recognize the signal). But then, no games would run. PowerStrip was conflicting the the video card driver some how and the computer would blue screen when bringing up 3D mode.

At some point in the process, I double clicked on the "Screen" icon in the PowerStrip monitor config page, and it removed the resolution and refresh limits for the video card. I think that stuff is stored in the registry somewhere. Anyway, I was ticked that I couldn't get Guild Wars to run pixel perfect, so I turned off PowerStrip so it wouldn't launch on reboot, then I hooked the VGA cable back up and restarted.

Bam! WIth the VGA cable, and no limit on the resolution setting, and PowerStrip NOT running, I was able to get 1920x1080 at 60hz now. And, Guild Wars ran, and it's a beautiful thing!

I have a couple of questions:

1. Anyone else try the 37MF437B as a computer monitor? If so then...

2. Would an NVIDIA card work any better or worse via DVI to HDMI? My laptop has an NVIDIA chipset and a DVI port, I should try it out... Hmmm...

3. Do you think I'll actually need a video card with a real HDMI port to get the sync to work without messing with PowerStrip, etc?

4. Is the TV doing the strange scaling? Or is it the video card? I want to know if my over the air 1080i is just getting line-doubled, or line-doubles and screwed up width wise.

5. Can I get an HDMI device, like HD DVD player or Blu-ray player to map pixel perfect to 1080p? I have a PS3 I can hook up, and a Toshiba HD-A35, but I don't know what content on those devices would even give me a pattern that shows a 1 to 1 pixel mapping for a test...

Any input as I dig in would be much appreciated. Oh, and if you wonder about the Lag? It seems pretty acceptable so far. And, if I can figure out the 1 to 1 pixel thing soon, then I'll hook up my CRT and do some actual testing. I don't want to screw with that if I can't get 1 to 1 working however. Later all!
 
I also just bought one of those, haven't received yet though (bought online) but I'm hoping that it would be a good screen. 1080p and 8ms so it shouldn't be too bad. I hope I won't have the resolution problem you're having. I have a olevia 37" but 720p and it's running beautifully on my 8800gts hope everything will work once I use the magnavox.
 
I'd try updating your drivers, the new Nvidia and ATI control panels should have options for HDTV output.
 
I'm just curious, did you happen to see the thread on this particular 37" 1080P LCD?

Yes, I have one, but I'm just wondering if you saw it, and why you bought the Maggy over the Westy? What differences does the Magnavox have that the Westy doesn't?

TIA,
Brin
 
I got the maggy because I got a good deal on it, and they should be good (made by philips). The only difference that I could tell is that the maggy has a tuner.
 
phldbr said:
I have a olevia 37" but 720p and it's running beautifully on my 8800gts hope everything will work once I use the magnavox.
Click to expand...

You'll have to let me know what happens with the NVidia card on the Maggy. I'd be very interested to know. I really should try my laptop with it, but I have been out of town for a few days. Maybe I'll get a chance to try it mid week. I have Vista Ultimate on my laptop, with a 79000gts chip set. I hate getting drivers for this thing, it's a pain. I have to manually modify an inf file so they will install. *sigh*

Let me know what you find out. Thanks!
 
Blazestorm said:
I'd try updating your drivers, the new Nvidia and ATI control panels should have options for HDTV output.
Click to expand...

Yeah, That was one of the first things I did. I did play around with the HDTV settings. Again, it seemed like it was just 3 pixels too wide, and those pixels were shoved to the left. *sigh* And, since it wasn't 1 to 1, I had this unpleasant scaling effect that left the text blurry in some areas and clear in others. Well, I'll keep messing with it.
 
I didn't see the thread on the Westinghouse 1080p unit. But I do need the ATSC tuner, as well. The computer monitor thing was more of an afterthought, but it would be great to get a machine hooked up as an HTPC or something in the future. I guess that's why I am trying to do this. Oh, and because I like making all my hardware cry. *laugh*
 
Jim Robbins said:
You'll have to let me know what happens with the NVidia card on the Maggy. I'd be very interested to know. I really should try my laptop with it, but I have been out of town for a few days. Maybe I'll get a chance to try it mid week. I have Vista Ultimate on my laptop, with a 79000gts chip set. I hate getting drivers for this thing, it's a pain. I have to manually modify an inf file so they will install. *sigh*

Let me know what you find out. Thanks!
Click to expand...

The guy just shipped mine out today. According to ups I should have it monday and I'll for sure let you know what happens. Hopefully everything will work out fine.
 
Just got my magnavox delivered by UPS today. Works perfectly fine. A very big difference going from a 37" 720p to a 37" 1080p. I'm loving it. So far I have it hooked up through VGA since I don't have an HDMI cable yet but I have had no problem with setting the resolution to 1080p
 
I'll have to make sure I take my laptop home tonight so I can hook it up to this screen via HDMI (from my DVI Port). I'd really like to know if there is some built in scaling that can't be compensated for on the HDMI input. I am glad it's working well for you. How far away from it do you sit for computing, btw?
 
Well, I hooked up my laptop to it tonight via a DVI to HDMI adapter and an HDMI cable. It seems there is some automatic scaling going on when you use a 1080p signal via HDMI. I tried both HDMI ports on the TV, and it looks like it's losing anywhere from 10 to 15 pixels. Of course, while using the VGA, this didn't happen. It also means that any time you plug in a 1080p device via HDMI, you are going to lose some of the image and it will be scaled larger than the actual display. You can't use the Format button to change this, either.

It's really frustrating to know that I am losing part of my image. I understand why they did this, however. When I get an image from my DirecTV HD DVR box, I often have a border at the top or bottom depending on the HD channel I am on. I use a projector with this sat box and it doesn't do the same kind of zoom, so it's easy to see. I am betting, that the overscan/clipping/scaling/whatever that the Maggy does would eliminate this. For the average person, that's probably best, and they wouldn't know the difference. For the advanced users, like us, it's a pain...

Ok, so I just called Magnavox to explain the situation to a support person. He said something must be wrong with me computer setup and that it is scaling, and not the TV. I told him that's not the case and that surely the TV IS scaling the image up and cropping off the borders. He wouldn't give me a service code so I could poke around. We ended the converstaion.

I grabbed by HD-DVD player and Digital Video Essentials HD disc, and hooked it up. Indeed, with the overscan pattern on the screen from a "consumer" device, it is clipping off about 2.5% of the image and adding some sort of scaling that makes the 1 pixel lines shimmer.

Anyone have a service code? I am about ready to take this thing back. It's just cheap for a decent looking 1080p set, but I don't want it to scale. *sigh* If anyone has any way to turn off the scaling, please let me know. Thanks!!!
 
I'm sorry to hear that. I do have an hdmi to dvi cable coming in sometime this week and will try that. I'll see if the same thing happens to me. But yeah like you said, if using VGA it's a beauty. I'll let you know what happens to me. BTW I sit about 3 feet from it.
*I'll post a picture in a bit.*
 
All right, Got the HDMI cable. For some reason the desktop is "too big". I can't make it any smaller. Messed around with all the setting I could find but nothing.
Did you figure yours out Jim?
Anyone have any advice?
 
My desktop is too large also; I hooked up my Mac to my new Sharp 1080p 32" and can't see the four edges of my desktop.

Bummer :(
 
So I guess we have the same problem also and it's not only the Magnavox.
Hopefully someone know the solution. :(
 
I had a hell of a time with a X1950XTX so I sold it and got an 8800GTS

Television is in my signature
 
Finally found a fix. I was searching all morning. So it's this utility that modifies your registry and allows you to select scaling options... In our case we don't want and scaling. Desktop is perfect now.
Here's the link: http://rapidshare.com/files/90247034/OverscanUtils.zip
By using this Utility you will automatically disable HDCP which shouldn't be a problem. If it is you can just run Disable.exe and it will go back to normal. Make sure you reboot after you run it.
 
Well, I never got a chance to try out the fix. I did find that the reg fix you found there is for NVidia based cards. Also, when it is used, it disables HDCP, which isn't a big deal unless you are running HD DVD or Blu-Ray movies.

I had a cousin come over to my house last weekend, and we hooked it up to his computer via VGA and he fell in love with it. We also hooked it up to my XBox 360 with component video cables and set it to 1080p. It looked beautiful, but it was still doing the auto overscan thing, so a little bit of the edges of the image were still lost. Based on what was going on with the HDMI cable, I figured it would do this.

So, still not pixel perfect for 1080p sources, but the scaler was fast. There was no frame tearing or artifacting while it was scaling the XBox 360 signal. In fact, we hooked it up to my Panasonic projector at the same time as the Maggy through my receiver, and we did some comparison. It looks like the Maggy was every so slightly faster in the response. It couldn't have been more than a frame or two per second faster. This really surprised me as it was doing the scaling, but you could never tell as a normal person, unless you had gear like I do to try this crazy stuff.

In any case, he HAD to have the monitor, and I'll still be looking for something that looks as good, is just as fast, but has 0 scaling, unless I tell it to... *grin*

All in all, this is a pretty nice screen for the average user, and only freaks like me will know what it's doing. I only wish the higher end monitors/screens had scaling that's as fast and nice as this unit. Oh well, they cost more and have their own flaws. Sometimes cheap is good. *grin*

Later!
 
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