How do I adjust display size, not resolution?

Question

I have my Ubuntu 11.10 PC plugged into a TV using an HDMI input. The edges of the screen get cut off, and I can't adjust the television's settings for HDMI. I can adujust the "position and size" on the TV for all other inputs, but not HDMI for some reason, I guess it's just a limitation of the tv itself.

Ubuntu detects my TV and only offers one display resolution, 1280x720 (16:9)

Is there a way to scale down the display so that the edges won't get cut off?

Solution 1

See Nemo's answer https://askubuntu.com/a/413132/511681 It fixed that problem on my TV as hdmi monitor. The same problem happens with all the various recent Ubuntu's I have tried with this TV. I don't want to use a proprietary driver. Nemo says:

xrandr --output HDMI-0 --set underscan on

or

xrandr --output HDMI-0 --set underscan auto

Now with underscan I have a black border 8-9mm but I can now see the task bar and the edges of maximised windows.

My equipment is:

• Mobility Radeon HD5430 using the recommended driver xserver-xorg-video-ati (open source) version 1:7.3.0-ubuntu3.1 X.Org X server - AMD/ATI display driver wrapper.
• Monitor is a TV: Mars-Tech Corporation 32" hdmi-0 Resolution 1280 x 720 Refresh rate 60Hz.

Solution 2

This problem is called "Overscan". Some graphics card providers (e.g. NVidia) allow you to compensate for this by reducing the size of the display area, through configuration software that comes with the drivers.

Solution 3

I have a similar question with 16.04 with nvidia based graphic card to a Panasonic 26" TV,detected as an 32" if connected HDMI. I could solve the Output Problem, i can see the hole screen with the "underscan" Option, but this doesn't solve the reason for this Fault. The output of "xrandr" is stillgiving the worngphysicalMonitor size and i can't find the correct "xrandr" semantic to change the Monitor size to its correct values. This is the "xrandr --query" output:

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Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 1920 x 1080, maximum 8192 x 8192 DVI-I-1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)

HDMI-1 connected primary 1920x1080+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 697mm x 392mm

1280x720 50.00 + 60.00 59.94
1920x1080 60.00 50.00 50.00 59.94*

1920x1080i 60.00 50.00 59.94
720x576 50.00
720x480 60.00 59.94
640x480 60.00 59.94
VGA-1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)

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The values "697mm x 392mm" should be changed to 575mm x 325mm. I guess this would do the job the "right" way.