How to increase game area in 4:3 format?

[Spyke]

Hi.

I run all my consoles through the same TV.
It's a 19" LCD TV made by Technika, and it's a not flashy but it works well. Good picture and all the inputs I could ever need.
It has 1080P for the newer consoles and has worked flawlessly for the last year.

But when running games on my PS1 or Megadrive consoles, which operate in 4:3 aspect ratio, the visible "game area" is small compared with the screen area. There is space at the top and bottom of the screen (and loads to the sides obviously as it's a wide-screen TV) so I can see there's space to make the game area bigger... but I don't know how I can do it?

I've looked through all the options and settings on the TV itself, in the menus and in the manual, and there's no option for increasing the actual area of the active screen. There are several presets (19:9, 4:3, Zoom and Stretch) but none of them have the effect I want, which is a true 4:3 aspect but spread over a larger part of the screen.

Is there a device that I can use between the console and TV to do what I want? (At the moment my MD and Saturn both output SCART to a SCART switchbox, which then goes into the TV SCART socket).

Thanks for any tips.

Ant

[ZellSF]

Look for an overscan setting.

Edit: usually only so much you can do about that with TV settings though...

[Spyke]

Thanks. Had a look but no overscan setting.

Ant

[ZellSF]

Do you have an exact model number? You can skip checking if it takes you more than five seconds, it probably won't help.

[Spyke]

The model number is I think Technika LCD19-228 but I can't be sure as the label is now under my WESA mounting plate!

I checked the online manual but didn't find anything in it. May have missed it though...

Ant

[TransatlanticFoe]

If you have a 14:9 mode, that scales quite nicely with 4:3 PAL borders to fill more of the screen (you lose a handful of rows but rarely anything noticeable). That's on my LG 19" so with Technika being Tesco own-brand, it wouldn't be surprising if it doesn't have it. You might be able to get the zoom to work - again this is the setting on my TV so yours may differ, but with it I can manually adjust a 4:3 letterboxed widescreen picture to the correct 16:9/16:10 ratio.

Ultimately it looks like it might be a case of suck it up or buy a different TV (either dedicated 4:3 CRT or more advanced LCD).

[Spyke]

Ultimately it looks like it might be a case of suck it up or buy a different TV (either dedicated 4:3 CRT or more advanced LCD).

I assumed that might be the case. Worth a try asking though.

Ant