[Pathos]

Text on my screen looked great using a DVI connection but once I switched over to HDMI the text degraded significantly. The text on my icons are noticeably difficult to read and text in a word processing document or on the internet is very difficult to distinguish from being plain or bold until the font size is at least 36 or so. It is also hard to distinguish a lower and upper case “i” as the dot on the letter is all blurred or caved in. It is as if the resolution is suffering from degraded pixelation. The colors are also a little intense. The overall picture is almost what you would expect to see when a scanned document’s contrast is turned way up.

I am using the HDMI format with an ATI Radeon HD4670 1080p full HD card on a Samsung P2370HD 23-Inch Full 1080p HDTV LCD Monitor with a screen resolution of 1920 x 1080, 32 bit color, and the scaling as low as I can get it without cropping anything from being viewed. The text was perfectly readable when I was using a DVI video interface but I was having problems with the onboard sound on my old motherboard (Realtek AC97).
Below I have posted the HDMI cable specs (it is brand new):

• Length: 6 feet
• Manufacturer: Craig
• Stamped with the official "HDMI High Speed with Ethernet" seal of approval
• Stamped with the with "X.V.Colour" seal
• supports HDMI Ethernet Channel
• Internet Connection sharing
• Transferring High Definition Video Signal up to 1080p
• Transferring Multi-Channel Digital Audio Signals
• Dolby True HD
• DTS-HD Master
• 3D
• 4K Gold plated HDMI plugs
• Designed for HDTV components
• Made in China, June 2010
• No gauge or HDMI version given but sounds close to v1.3 or v1.4

I have put so much emphasis on the cable specs only in that this is the second cable I have used. The graphics resulting from the use of my first HDMI cable initially looked crumby like what I am seeing now but then my HDMI connection was lost altogether. I would switch back to DVI if not for the problems I have interfacing the graphics card’s onboard sound (7.1 surround) with the motherboard’s onboard sound (5.1 surround).

Does anybody have any suggestions of what I can do to improve the way the text appears?

Edited by Pathos, 20 March 2011 - 06:47 AM.

[Advertisements]

Well, the digital graphics signal supplied by DVI and HDMI is exactly the same so it must be a setting or handshaking problem with the HDMI connection that is doing this. I think, since you have tried two cables, I would try the monitor on another computer with HDMI and see what happens. If nothing else, that will eliminate the monitor (and cables) from the equation if it works fine on the other computer.

[Digerati]

Well, the digital graphics signal supplied by DVI and HDMI is exactly the same so it must be a setting or handshaking problem with the HDMI connection that is doing this. I think, since you have tried two cables, I would try the monitor on another computer with HDMI and see what happens. If nothing else, that will eliminate the monitor (and cables) from the equation if it works fine on the other computer.

[Pathos]

I looked for complaints regarding the Samsung P2370HD monitor on Amazon and AVSforum.com and I saw the same exact complaints echoed. I have made small improvements (though I'm not sure if they are real or imaginary) while making adjustments to my monitor settings. I am beginning to think this is not the best suited monitor for a PC. My wife has another monitor at work that I will try to swap to do the troubleshooting you suggest. If I can come up with any more definitive conclusions after the swap I will post them here. Thanks so much for your help!

[Digerati]

If I can come up with any more definitive conclusions after the swap I will post them here. Thanks so much for your help!

You are welcome, good luck and keep us posted.