The service guy was just over to service my 65" HDTV & I had asked to have the overscan turned down, which I was told they could do. He couldn't bring up the service menu & didn't know what overscan was, but didn't think it could be changed. After a few angry phone calls, they said they can do it for me, but seem to be trying to talk me out of it. They're saying it will change the way everything looks & I might have black bars on the side watching regular tv (I'm assuming he means in stretch mode). Is this really a bad thing? I would think the picture just won't be stretched as much? Is there a down side to having it turned down?

No cons I can think of just be sure that the percentage of overscan is equal on all four sides and stay between 2 and 5% to lessen the chance of any dead space showing up on screen.

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Mugwump's DVDs & LDs

The only thing I can think of is perhaps they have to set overscan for each picture mode (480/720, standard/stretch/zoom, etc.) independently, which is a chore and might cause different modes to reposition the picture differently. As far as the 'black bars on the side', they probably don't want your screen to unevenly burn-in because of not enough overscan.
Still, I think this was a reasonable request. No real threats.

I think one setting adjusts every mode. They didn't seem concerned with burn-in, but thought I wouldn't want to see any black lines. This won't shrink the picture when I'm watching regular tv in 4x3 mode with the grey bars on the side will it- make it look compressed? I just don't like watching a dvd like Apocalypse Now that's 2:1 (between 1:85:1 & 2:35:1) and there's only a sliver of a black bar. I'm Gonna Git You Sucka is 1:85:1 non-anamorphic & using the chop mode (not the stretch) the bars are as big as 2:1 Apoc, so I think the overscan IS making me lose a semi-significant amount of picture. mugwump, you said to keep it between 2-5%, what do you think it's on from the factory?

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR><font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by El Kabong:
mugwump, you said to keep it between 2-5%, what do you think it's on from the factory?</font><HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

You should have Avia or Video Essentials. There are overscan patterns so you can test it yourself. You definitely should have at least one of these DVD's. I recommend Avia.

Yep, get Avia. On my Toshiba direct view set overscan was at 12%. On my cruddy Magnavox it was at a staggering 20%.

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Mugwump's DVDs & LDs