How to Fix Overscan on your TV
This video explains what overscanning is, why it's bad, and most importantly, how to fix it.
Overscanning is a method TV’s use to zoom-in on the image anywhere from 5 to 10 percent. All HDTV’s overscan by default when you purchase the device from a store. So if you haven’t corrected for it, then your TV is probably overscanning.
So how does overscanning negatively affect the image? Well, anytime you zoom in on an image, the image quality itself is degraded. Furthermore, the field of view is reduced and you also lose out on the image on the edges of the screen. Which can be a big deal especially in video games that have important information on the corners of the screen, such as mini-maps, waypoint markers and health bars. For example, if you look at this screencapture of the game Bloodborne, you’ll see that if your TV is overscanning, everything beyond the red outlined box is being cut off, due to the zoom in. That, obviously, is terrible. And considering it’s something so easy to fix in your TV’s menu, why should you miss out on the edges of the image like that. You can barely even see the tree on the right side if your TV was overscanning.
So how do you disable overscanning? Luckily, it’s really simple. On most semi-modern TVs less than 5 years old. Simply go to the TV’s menu. Then go to picture settings, on picture size it may currently be on 16:9 aspect ratio. You want to change this to something else called, Just Scan, or Picture Fit, or Pixel by Pixel, or Dot by Dot – different TV brands call it different things. But it accomplishes the same thing. Here is an example on my Samsung television. I go to the menu, picture size, and I change it ScreenFit. And there you go. All fixed. Sometimes on an older TV, you may have a separate overscan option, find it and set it to Off. On other TV’s, you may have an AV or PC option. Put it on PC. Just know that on most TV’s there is a way to disable overscanning. Check your manual, google your TV brand, but there is a way. Only on a few, really old TV’s is there no way to correct for it. Also remember, If you own a PS4 or WiiU, after you’ve disabled overscanning, make sure you go back to the console’s display settings and readjust the display area.
I hope you found this video helpful. If you want to read the transcript of this video, the entire word document is available in the video’s description. Like and Subscribe, and thank you for watching.