No Menu Bar in ICS with HDMI out

[taymackay]

Hello,

I have a Toshiba Excite 10 LE (AT200) Tablet running ICS 4.0.3 and have it connected to my TV using a micro-HDMI adapter and an HDMI cable.

It connects fine and I can see the image, but I have no toolbar (Back, Home, Task Switch, Clock, etc). I have tried to check if my TV has any overscan settings that could adjust this and have my TV set to 'Just Scan' which sets the overscan to 0, as opposed to 16:9 mode which cuts off part of the image, but there were no settings I seemed to be able to modify on the TV which allowed for the toolbar to show up.

Likewise in the Tablet menu, I don't see anything under Settings->Display which could help show the menu bar. I know it is still there since I can drag my bluetooth mouse below the bottom of the screen and hit the Home button, but I'd really like to be able to see it.

Does anyone have any suggestions for how to fix this? I didn't see any apps in the market that allow you to adjust HDMI out overscan settings either.

Thanks,
Taylour

 

[Devinator]

Are you positive that something is just getting cutoff in the display? If so, did you look long and hard through the TV menus for a way to move the screen around or resize it? I'm not doubting you, just curious.

I believe I had this issue in the past, and, I just went in and checked my settings. I have something called HD Size. I have two of them. If I set it to HD 1, it cuts off part of the image on all sides. But, if I set it to HD 2, it's perfect. Hopefully you have something like that.

 

[taymackay]

Actually I think it is a ICS/Tablet problem. I've tried all of the different settings on my TV and have not even seen a partial menu bar. I currently have it set to "Just Scan" which is a 1:1 pixel mapping mode and removes any overscan.

I believe that the tablet isnt sending out the menu bar as part of the 720P image which is why it isnt visible. However, there aren't any options in the ICS settings that fix the problem.

The only options I have are in Settings->Display->HDMI video mode
1) HDMI output: Mirror
2) HDMI output: Video area only

I have it set to option 1), which should show the menu bar via HDMI, but neither option seems to work.

 

[Devinator]

Hmm. Well, when I get home, I will hook my Prime up to my TV and see what I get. I generally don't hook it up to my TV because I have no reason to. But, I will check later tonight and report back.

 

[Devinator]

Okay, I just hooked up my Prime. I have two options under HDMI, Scale and Crop. If I had it set to Crop, I couldn't see the notification bar. When I had it on Scale, I was able to see about half of the notification bar. Still not sure why you aren't seeing it, but, at least we know it's not a Tablet problem. I checked all the settings on my TV and couldn't make it display properly. But, at least I was able to see part of it. Not sure why you aren't though.

 

[taymackay]

thanks for your help, I think you are getting only half the menu bar because you have your TV HDMI input set to '16:9' and not 'Just Scan'. Just Scan will remove overscan so you should see the full menu bar.

My Tablet doesn't have crop/scale in the menu. It has Mirror and Video Area only (both which don't show the menu bar at all).

What version of Android do you have on your Prime? I'm guessing that crop/scale is on your menu because you are on 4.0.4 or 4.1. My tablet is only on 4.0.3 which may be why I don't have the same menu items as you. Hopefully I will get an update to my Android version that will fix this.

 

[Devinator]

Yea, no problem. I don't use my tablet for output to my TV anyway. If I ever need to though, I'll remember this forum.

My Prime is on 4.0.3 too.