HDMI - getting decent video quality from typical monitors

Hi there

Most people I've seen usually have appalling (almost unreadable) quality when using an external monitor with an HDMI cable -- it's quite simple to fix really easily. Films / video are usually OK but if you are reading email or doing standard computer work then you want the monitor to give you decent results.

First ensure that the "Sharpness" setting on the monitor is set correctly -- oversharpening makes text etc look terrible.

secondly use something like "Auto size" so the picture size fits the screen properly rather than be slightly too large or small even if say 1920 X 1080 HD is selected.

thirdly use correct frequency for scanning -- in Europe should be 60 or 59HZ - use the "p" choice not the "I" one.

finally use sensibly the smart picture settings if you have one or use colour / tint / contrast / brightness settings properly.

Messing around with these controls really does turn an external monitor from in some cases having an almost unreadable screen to a pleasure to use --even on cheap 22 inch TV's.

Use the monitors own menu - don't do it from the PC display settings.

A typical laptop's video card will be perfectly ok on these types of monitors.

Cheers
jimbo

Hi Jimbo. I'm reviewing all the questions and threads and you seem to know quite a bit about monitors. I'm wondering if you can help me out with my problem. I recently installed windows 10 on my computer. I have a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 760 display adapter (I guess its a graphics card) and an Acer K272HL monitor (1920 x 1080 resolution 60Hz). When I first installed Windows 10, I noticed some of my apps were not fitting on the screen properly (they were too big and parts were almost off the screen). So I did what I now know I shouldn't do, I bumped the monitor resolution up past what Windows recommended. Now I have a black screen with a little box floating around that says "Input not Supported". I know the monitor still works because I hooked it up to another computer I have, and It works fine. It also works in Safe Mode but when I restart out of Safe Mode, I get the same black screen. You can probably tell, I'm not the brightest light in the room when it comes to computer technology, so I'm looking for some help and suggestions as to how to get my monitor back to the proper resolution. By the way, my first attempt at installing Windows 10 ended up costing me $200.00 to have an expert come in and re-install Windows 7 for me. I'd like to not have to embarrass myself again to call him back. Anything you can think of that might help, I'd be greatfull.
Thanks,

Gary