Playing videos shifts screen to left... !

I have been having this problem for the last few weeks and haven't been able to find a solution yet.

When I play videos on youtube, WMP, mplayer or adobe air/flash, video app or whatever, the entire display/screen moves to the left and leaves a black rectangle on the right side of the plasma TV (about one sixth the width of the display). It doesn't happen as soon as I launch the video, but happens when I exit the fullscreen or terminate the app/window and stays that way. The only way to reset it is to log off and log back in or restart the computer.

Mind you, it is not the apps/windows shifting to the left but the entire display, as if some one used the tv settings to move the display area to the left and so left part of the desktop and windows are cut off.

This is getting pretty annoying as keep switching to apps that display text such as VS, Notepad, browser etc in between while playing movies/videos. I can't read what is on the left side of the app window as it is not visible, I need to either resize the window or log out and log back in.

I am using Windows 8 x64 with latest updates and drivers (display and others).

I will post my hardware details if you feel that it may be a hardware problem.

Thanks for any help.

186 views, no replies ? Really ?

I can't tell you how to fix it , but I can say what it sounds like the problem is....

Your PC is changing the outgoing video refresh rate to match what the file is set to , this is then forcing your plasma TV to adapt , causing this issue...


There may be a setting somewhere to stop this happening.

I agree with Wullail. Sounds like your plasma TV can't hack the resolutions maybe. What's the highest it will go, 720p?

If you have an nVidia card using GeForce drivers, you can adjust the video scaling manually. You can adjust the scaling mode by clicking this:



AMD/ATI and Intel graphics have similar adjustments.

Thank you both for your replies.

I am using nVidia GTX 660 Ti (2 way SLI) with the latest nVidia drivers and a 51" Samsung Plasma TV PN51F4500AF (Specs - Plasma TV PN51F4500AF | Samsung TVs). I have tried all the option on the nVidia settings as pointed by XweAponX and it apparently makes no difference.

I have had this TV for three months now and the problem begun only about 3 weeks ago ! It is quite random, means it doesn't happen every time I launch a video, but happens only sometimes. It never happens when I am playing video games (like Tomb Raider, Splinter Cell Blacklist, Metro Last Light etc) or using some other full screen apps.

Any ideas ?

What happens if your turn off/on the TV when this happens?

Yah - It's 720p - And I bet the problem may be related to that.

What happens if your turn off/on the TV when this happens?

Click to expand...

That fixes it. I am at a loss here. There was a time when I made linux KDE run on my video hardware (a SiS vid card and a CRT monitor) by calculating the scan modes manually and I thought I knew everything about displays ! Guess it is time to update my knowledge with the latest knowhow !?

OK, So how do I fix this without resorting to logging off & on or turning off/on the TV ?

Thanks.

Have you tried different display modes on your tv, like 16:9,4:3, 1080p,1080i,720p? I know with my old laptop I could switch back and forth between my cable signal and laptop with my lcd tv without a problem. i got a new laptop and now I have to set my laptop to blank the screen after a couple of minutes and wait that long before switching back to my laptop. It is mildly annoying but I haven't worked to much at trying to figure it out.

My TV doesn't give me the option to switch between 1080i/p and 720p. An aspect ratio of 4:3 makes the viewing area too small as I believe it uses only about half the screen width with the image centered. I do not switch between computers, my TV is connected to my computer and I rarely switch to my DVD player.

Any way you can cap all of your Video Output to 720?

Do you ever try to watch content that is 1080, can you view it on your TV? Also, with My HDTV, I have to roll back the resolution to about 1842 by 1036, or else my Desktop rolls off the Screen. I do that using the nVidia Control Panel, "resize Screen". Do you have to do anything like that for your Plasma TV?

AlexBW said:

My TV doesn't give me the option to switch between 1080i/p and 720p. An aspect ratio of 4:3 makes the viewing area too small as I believe it uses only about half the screen width with the image centered. I do not switch between computers, my TV is connected to my computer and I rarely switch to my DVD player.

Click to expand...

I checked on your Plasma TV model - You don;t have 1080 at all, it's 720. That's why I asked if you are trying to watch any Videos that are 1080 HD?

If I had that limitation, I would probably only get 720 versions of what I wanna watch. But I don't know. You've got the Plasma TV, can you actually watch Videos at 1080? Maybe the problem has to do with Video Downscaling.

Yes, my TV only supports 720p but, I am able to play 1080 as well.

I experimented with all the options in nVidia control panel like setting the GPU to do the scaling vs the display etc., it made no difference at all. One interesting thing I noticed that, if I set OpenGL as the driver for mplayer I do not face this problem, but if I set direct3d as the video driver then I encounter this display shifting to the left every time I play a video.

So, I found a work around I could say, at least for mplayer. But, youtube videos always cause the display to move left. I wonder if I can specify youtube player to use OpenGL !?