Ok this is an extension of another problem I had with a VGA connection and an Nvidia Geforce GT 440 card. The question has been updated to include other problems related to HDMI Video and also since I have confirmed that it also affects ATI video cards. The explanation is the following:
I have a Soneview 32' TV. This TV has many connections including VGA (First reason I bought it), HDMI (Second reason but did not have a HDMI cable at that time) and DVI.
I have had this TV for little over a month now, actually I had it to celebrate the release of Ubuntu 11.10 and started using it exactly on that date (I know too much fan there but hey, I like geek stuff). I started using it with the VGA cable. After 2 weeks I bought an Nvidia GT440 card. The previous 9500GT which was using the VGA connection was working correctly with no problems whatsoever.
I installed the GT440 and the first problem that I encountered using this latest card is mentioned here: Black screen on latest Nvidia/Ati Cards when starting LightDM/Ubuntu. The solution to this problem was to actually disconnect then connect again the VGA cable. This would result in the screen showing me the lightdm screen for my login. If I did not disconnect then connect the cable I could be there forever thinking that there is no video signal. The black screen problem was solved in a later update for 12.04 and already solved using the default 12.10. So using 12.04 and updating or using 12.10 solved the black screen with HDMI problem.
I got tired of looking for answers that did not work and for solutions that made me literally have to install Ubuntu again. I just went and bought an HDMI cable and changed the VGA one for that one. It worked and I did not have to disconnect/connect the cable but now I have this problem when using any resolution. My normal resolution is 1920x1080 (This TV is 1080HD) so in VGA I could use this resolution with no problem, but on HDMI am getting the borders cut out. Here is a pic:
As you can see from the image, the Launcher icons only show less than 50% of their width. Forget about the top and bottom parts, I can access them with the mouse but I can not visualize them in the screen. It is like it's outside of the TVs view. Basically there is like 20 to 30 pixels gone from all sides.
I searched around and came to running xrand --verbose
to see what it could detect from the TV. I got this:
cyrex@cyrex:~$ xrandr --verbose
xrandr: Failed to get size of gamma for output default
Screen 0: minimum 320 x 175, current 1920 x 1080, maximum 1920 x 1080
default connected 1920x1080+0+0 (0x164) normal (normal) 0mm x 0mm
Identifier: 0x163
Timestamp: 465485
Subpixel: unknown
Clones:
CRTC: 0
CRTCs: 0
Transform: 1.000000 0.000000 0.000000
0.000000 1.000000 0.000000
0.000000 0.000000 1.000000
filter:
1920x1080 (0x164) 103.7MHz *current
h: width 1920 start 0 end 0 total 1920 skew 0 clock 54.0KHz
v: height 1080 start 0 end 0 total 1080 clock 50.0Hz
1920x1080 (0x165) 105.8MHz
h: width 1920 start 0 end 0 total 1920 skew 0 clock 55.1KHz
v: height 1080 start 0 end 0 total 1080 clock 51.0Hz
1920x1080 (0x166) 107.8MHz
h: width 1920 start 0 end 0 total 1920 skew 0 clock 56.2KHz
v: height 1080 start 0 end 0 total 1080 clock 52.0Hz
1920x1080 (0x167) 109.9MHz
h: width 1920 start 0 end 0 total 1920 skew 0 clock 57.2KHz
v: height 1080 start 0 end 0 total 1080 clock 53.0Hz
1920x1080 (0x168) 112.0MHz
h: width 1920 start 0 end 0 total 1920 skew 0 clock 58.3KHz
v: height 1080 start 0 end 0 total 1080 clock 54.0Hz
1920x1080 (0x169) 114.0MHz
h: width 1920 start 0 end 0 total 1920 skew 0 clock 59.4KHz
v: height 1080 start 0 end 0 total 1080 clock 55.0Hz
1680x1050 (0x16a) 98.8MHz
h: width 1680 start 0 end 0 total 1680 skew 0 clock 58.8KHz
v: height 1050 start 0 end 0 total 1050 clock 56.0Hz
1680x1050 (0x16b) 100.5MHz
h: width 1680 start 0 end 0 total 1680 skew 0 clock 59.9KHz
v: height 1050 start 0 end 0 total 1050 clock 57.0Hz
1600x1024 (0x16c) 95.0MHz
h: width 1600 start 0 end 0 total 1600 skew 0 clock 59.4KHz
v: height 1024 start 0 end 0 total 1024 clock 58.0Hz
1440x900 (0x16d) 76.5MHz
h: width 1440 start 0 end 0 total 1440 skew 0 clock 53.1KHz
v: height 900 start 0 end 0 total 900 clock 59.0Hz
1360x768 (0x171) 65.8MHz
h: width 1360 start 0 end 0 total 1360 skew 0 clock 48.4KHz
v: height 768 start 0 end 0 total 768 clock 63.0Hz
1360x768 (0x172) 66.8MHz
h: width 1360 start 0 end 0 total 1360 skew 0 clock 49.2KHz
v: height 768 start 0 end 0 total 768 clock 64.0Hz
1280x1024 (0x173) 85.2MHz
h: width 1280 start 0 end 0 total 1280 skew 0 clock 66.6KHz
v: height 1024 start 0 end 0 total 1024 clock 65.0Hz
1280x960 (0x176) 83.6MHz
h: width 1280 start 0 end 0 total 1280 skew 0 clock 65.3KHz
v: height 960 start 0 end 0 total 960 clock 68.0Hz
1280x960 (0x177) 84.8MHz
h: width 1280 start 0 end 0 total 1280 skew 0 clock 66.2KHz
v: height 960 start 0 end 0 total 960 clock 69.0Hz
1280x720 (0x178) 64.5MHz
h: width 1280 start 0 end 0 total 1280 skew 0 clock 50.4KHz
v: height 720 start 0 end 0 total 720 clock 70.0Hz
1280x720 (0x179) 65.4MHz
h: width 1280 start 0 end 0 total 1280 skew 0 clock 51.1KHz
v: height 720 start 0 end 0 total 720 clock 71.0Hz
1280x720 (0x17a) 66.4MHz
h: width 1280 start 0 end 0 total 1280 skew 0 clock 51.8KHz
v: height 720 start 0 end 0 total 720 clock 72.0Hz
1152x864 (0x17b) 72.7MHz
h: width 1152 start 0 end 0 total 1152 skew 0 clock 63.1KHz
v: height 864 start 0 end 0 total 864 clock 73.0Hz
1152x864 (0x17c) 73.7MHz
h: width 1152 start 0 end 0 total 1152 skew 0 clock 63.9KHz
v: height 864 start 0 end 0 total 864 clock 74.0Hz
....Many Resolutions later...
320x200 (0x1d1) 10.2MHz
h: width 320 start 0 end 0 total 320 skew 0 clock 31.8KHz
v: height 200 start 0 end 0 total 200 clock 159.0Hz
320x175 (0x1d2) 9.0MHz
h: width 320 start 0 end 0 total 320 skew 0 clock 28.0KHz
v: height 175 start 0 end 0 total 175 clock 160.0Hz
1920x1080 (0x1dd) 333.8MHz
h: width 1920 start 0 end 0 total 1920 skew 0 clock 173.9KHz
v: height 1080 start 0 end 0 total 1080 clock 161.0Hz
If it helps, the Refresh Rate at 1920x1080 is 60. There is a flickering effect at this resolution using HDMI but not VGA which I imagine is related to the borders cut off issue am asking here.