Display size on TV

[KaIIen]

I am running 10.04 Lucid on a Toshiba Satellite A105. The onboard video is an Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 950. The issue is that when I connect it to my Panasonic widescreen TV (laptop is widescreen as well) the display is shrunk and has a lot of unused space on the sides/top/bottom. So like, if I wanna watch something from Hulu, I plug in the S-Video, and I can watch on the TV, but it's not using all the screen available... I have not found a way to resize the output so it fills the screen. Any suggestions? Thanks a lot!!

[devils casper]

Have you tried to change resolution through Display settings?

[KaIIen]

Have you tried to change resolution through Display settings?

Yup. The only options I have are to lower the res. But the size of the image displayed stays the same.

[coopstah13]

when you are running with the TV connected are you running multi monitor, and if so, are you using it in mirrored mode? because the TV might have a different native resolution than the laptop screen, so this might cause funky stuff to happen on the TV

[woodsmoke]

I have run several distros on a 57 inch widescreen t.v.
Although I've never run them using a laptop, I always had an up to date tower setup, I have noticed, and am confirming, what Coopstah said.

a) Lappys have certain "native" configurations and they want to go with that and it may not be "ideal" for the t.v.
b) Coopstah mentioned multi-monitor, there is a hardware function for displaying on an external monitor, and depending on the lappy if you do not set the hardware function to the "correct" mode, funky things can happen. I, personally, and this is just me, have found that some distros will let you have the display on the lappy monitor and also on the "projector", I use projectors a lot where I work, and sometimes they won't. So to expand on what Coopstah said, maybe try to turn the lappy display off and let the lappy figure out the best display for the t.v.
c) also, sometimes it is the cabling between the lappy and the t.v.
I know that this probably sounds really off the wall, but you might check to see if the t.v. has an "rgb" input, like for a "monitor" instead of using S-video. I have never found that S-video gave me any advantage and always just use a normal "monitor cable" 9 pin or 15 pin.
But...again, Coopstah's comment was a good starting point.
woodsmoke

[jippie]

Ever noticed how your PC seems to always guess the resolution of your VGA-attached monitor just right? This is because such a monitor can transmit some information via a few "unused" wires in the VGA-cable back to the graphics card.
S-video is a rather simple interface which fails this functionality. Your graphics card will therefore default to 4:3.

I think your only option is to set the screen mode the TV itself in such a way that it blows up your 4:3 display to wide screen. Then you probably have to manually configure your xorg.conf for the right resolution, but trust me, you probably loose yourself a lot of gaming time trying to figure out that config file.

You'll indeed be better of trying to find an unused VGA interface on the television.

c) also, sometimes it is the cabling between the lappy and the t.v.
I know that this probably sounds really off the wall, but you might check to see if the t.v. has an "rgb" input, like for a "monitor" instead of using S-video. I have never found that S-video gave me any advantage and always just use a normal "monitor cable" 9 pin or 15 pin.
But...again, Coopstah's comment was a good starting point.
woodsmoke

[dolo724]

We do this all the time at my house. We used to use my son's laptop until he wanted it back for school (silly boy). Please try the following:
1. Open a terminal or shell and use xrandr without options to find your video card's native capability. I suspect it can handle the external monitor without trouble.
2. I use a standard VGA cable to connect TV to lappy (cheap Dell) and then reboot. During the boot process press [fn+(F8 on Dell)] to activate the external monitor, unless it autoselects. Point is to force xorg to recognize the TV.
3. You should have full screen on the TV immediately. Do not rely on the lappy-screen to see things, I for one find it confusing.
4. Open a terminal or shell again and use xrandr to display the screen options. If the TV is displaying less than full screen, make sure it is set to either 1:1 or native size.
5. Good luck!

EDIT: I used my own even cheaper Dell to power a 46" thing where I volunteer. Something like 1600x1080, and no loss of image. BUT, with the lowly Intel 915 mobile Hulu is only good for watching the plot, not HD.