finding the optimal Monitor setting

GDPR-7 · July 29, 2022 at 10:41 PM

inspired by a thread in this forum and the wiki article "4K/HDR" I try to find the optimal setting for my monitor.

first of all I realized a sort of mismatch between what the monitor spec's suggest and what LE finds (kodi.log)

kodi.log (shortend for the relvant SAT-TV resolutions I see here)

resolution 1920x1080 with 1920x1080 or 1920x1080i @ 60.000000 Hz / 59.940063 Hz / 50.000000 Hz

resolution 1280x720 with 1280x720 @ 60.000000 Hz / 59.940063 Hz / 50.000000 Hz

resolution 720x576 with 720x576 @ 50.000000 Hz

attached is the suggested resolution for my monitor.

Questions

I wonder why there are some differences regarding resolution, frequencies, esp. 1280x720 and also 720x576 aren't in the attached monitor suggestion. - well I know *who* is forced to write the user manuals in company's ... -

maybe I take "Empfohlene Auflösung" to serious, shouldn't I ?

1. is it wise to have 1280x720 and 720x576 in my whitelist, even they aren't in the monitor spec's, but LE reported them as valid ?

2. would it harm the monitor ?

special question:

3. how can LE report the above resolutions even when the monitor is powered OFF, cable is connected though ?

===

my currently LE setting is (mostly following the wiki article):

* Player:

- adjust display refresh rate: on start/stop

* System:

- Resolution: 1920x1080p

- Refresh Rate: 60:00

- Set GUI resolution limit: 1080

- whitelist: 1920x1080

- Allow 3:2 pulldown refresh rates: ON

- Allow double refresh rates: ON

for the last three I'm unsure what to do here

4. so what to do , esp. according the wiki article -IIRC- to prevent putting some "higher load on the CPU" ?

5. what combination of whitelist and the both "Allow" are the correct one ?

Hints:

Monitor is an Philips 247E3LHSU

in germany

HD-TV is 1280x720 50 FPS,

ServusTV is 1920x1088i 50 FPS

Vox, n-tv is 720x576i 50 FPS

it would be nice to handle them correct without running my monitor out of the spec's

**HiassofT** · July 29, 2022 at 11:09 PM

In general: your TV will often be able to do better upscaling than eg an RPi, so if your TV has native support for some resolution you need then enable it in the whitelist.

eg 1280x720 - add it (at 50 and 60Hz), that's what your HD (satellite?) streams use.

720x576 (or 720x480 in "NTSC land") may be a candidate, too, but test it. My LG OLED supports it but annoyingly forces overscan at these resolutions (despite having set "Just scan" - i.e. no overscan in the TV settings). This is OK if you play from a DVD player but not so much with kodi as it'll cut off parts of the overlays (eg player control when paused or going to player settings).

Allow double refresh rates: yes, you need that. Interlaced content will report in frame rate, eg 25 frames for 50i fields, and you don't want kodi to switch to 25 Hz - it'll deinterlace and output 50 frames.

3:2 pulldown - you only need that if your TV doesn't support 23.97/24 Hz, then kodi will switch to 59.9x/60Hz.

so long,

Hias

GDPR-7 · July 30, 2022 at 12:11 AM

thanks for support !

Quote from HiassofT

so if your TV has native support for some resolution you need then enable it in the whitelist.

this an computer monitor, but anyway it was a main question of me:

LE reports in the kodi.log some resolutions I can't find in the monitor spec's/manual !

did you miss that ?

what is correct ?

but obvious the monitor can do 1280x and 720x otherwise I wouldn't see any german HD TV pictures since years, I guess

Quote from HiassofT

(satellite?)

yes, germany

so I'll whitelist all the above resolution LE reports as valid, while NOT in the monitor spec's (attached PDF) and Allow both refresh rates/pull down ON ?

adjust display refresh rate: OFF, otherwise I've blank bars and/or a horizontal stretched picture with SD TV

the monitor goes with that, but I stumble over your comment in an RPI thread pointing to the mentioned wiki article, so I read again my monitor spec's and was, esp. regarding damaging my monitor, somewhat worried.

the keywords there, chap. "Mode Whitelist" is "if available" in the sentence "Recommendation: Configure Kodi to allow the following modes, if available:"

https://wiki.libreelec.tv/configuration/4k-hdr

**HiassofT** · July 30, 2022 at 10:29 AM

It's highly unlikely you'll damage your monitor if you select a resolution listed in it's EDID.

Damaging monitors was an issue with CRTs some 30+ years ago if you exceeded the specs - later CRTs were clever enough to check the signal and show a warning in that case.

It's quite common that computer monitors with HDMI inputs also support SD resolutions so you can hook up eg a DVD player.

BUT: computer monitors often have rather poor scalers, so in that case you might get better picture quality by letting LE do the SD->HD upscaling - I see NUC mentioned in your sig, that should be able to do high quality scaling.

In that case only enable the native resolution of your monitor in the whitelist at all refresh rates (except 25 and 29.97/30Hz as mentioned in the wiki) or the commonly used higher consumer resolutions (eg 1920x1080 and maybe 1280x720). If you use eg a 1920x1200 monitor it may only support 60Hz at the native resolution but offer 1920x1080 at 50 and 59.9x Hz as well.

So, you'll have to check yourself which combination gives the best picture results.

so long,

Hias

finding the optimal Monitor setting

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