Pc picture too big for tv

almillar

You DO have a widescreen TV then - 32 inch diagonally? You've got a 4:3 picture (squareish) in a 16:9 (Widescreen, rectangular) screen, hence the black space. You need to see if you can find a widescreen resolution (1920x1080, 800x600) for your shape of screen to be displayed without gaps or stretching. What cables are being used to connect? Sounds like you're using an SD TV, which means the picture might be rubbish anyway...

S0litaire

bit of a tech guide to TV's here... .^_^

TV stations DON'T broadcast in 1920x1080 or 1290x720
The actually broadcast a slightly larger picture around (+/- a handfull) 2000x1160 and 1370x800
The extra 40 pixel border is used to send things like Subtitles/Teletext/Time and in some cases program information.

But PC's send true 1920x1080 and 1290x720 but the TV thinks it's receving a broadcast signal so it expands the image to "hide" the 40 pixel border. That's why you loose the taskbar.

Their is usually a setting in the graphics card control panel to change this "Overscan" (i.e. it makes the graphics card add a border to the image) so that the image fits the screen perfectly.