Monkees "HEAD" in Los Angeles September 8th, new 35mm print!!

Yeah, my CRT TV crops about 5% each side! Am I right in thinking a flat panel TV shows the full image it is given? Obviously there is no overscan necessary but do flat panels lose a small ammount of image on the edges for reasons I'm not aware of?

 

All I can say on that subject is that on our set-up there is some loss around the edges on our flat-panel LCD. We've got a component video connection from the DVD player through an A/V receiver to the monitor. I haven't tried an HDMI connection.

Is there an expert in the house?

 

It's an internal setting of the monitor you are using. No matter what signal path/connection you use, the overscan will be the same (on that monitor).

If you know anyone with access to a broadcast monitor (such as used in a TV station or editing facility), those all have a button labelled "underscan" which will show you EVERYTHING, including the lines above the picture (called the "blanking") where stuff like closed captioning data is encoded.

Your regular commercial TVs (flat panel, rear projection, CRT, DLP, etc.) can have their overscan amount lessened by qualified technicians (or industrious persons who can get access to the modes used by the technicians).