How to get the best font clarity to display on an HDTV with c#?

Question

This is for an arrivals/departures flight display. The display is difficult to read because of blurry fonts. The current state is an asp.net page displayed using internet explorer on a HDTV.

From the software side, what can I do to produce good looking fonts? I've noticed that powerpoint presentations have nicely rendered fonts even on smaller resolutions. Refactoring as a windows application is an option.

Note: I know there is an issue with the hardware that needs to be worked out but I want to make sure I'm displaying the best fonts possible. The current hardware setup is a vga output to hardware to convert to component video and a long cable run to a hdtv.

Answer 1

Use ClearType.

If it's an LCD connected with DVI or VGA, set it to the native resolution.

Answer 2

Are you sure it has to do with the actual software? Have you checked connection to the HDTV, resolution used, any upscaling used by the HDTV to get the incoming digital signal to the potentially larger number of display pixels?

Answer 3

It's not on the software side, but probably the biggest factor in font readability is whether or not the display is showing the picture with 1:1 pixel mapping between the display and the source, and that no overscan is going on and causing unnecessary interpolation.

Answer 4

If powerpoint looks good, then I can assume your display is set up reasonably well. Make sure Always use ClearType for HTML is checked in IE under Tools/Internet Options/Advanced.

Note you need to restart the browser for this to take effect.

Edit: To know when you've got it right, load the PowerPoint that looks good, and use the exact same font face in your web app. Then compare them side by side so you know when they look exactly the same.

Answer 5

The current hardware setup is a vga output to hardware to convert to component video and a long cable run to a hdtv.

One more thing: as a rule, component video comes in several predefined resolutions, namely: 720x576 (576p), 1280x720 (720p) and 1920x1080 (1080p).

It seems that your VGA -> YPrPb hardware rescales the picture.

Set your VGA resolution to one of mentioned above.