Is your TV cutting off the picture?
Many televisions quietly zoom the image and crop the edges. You lose a few percent of every film, subtitles drift off the bottom, and scoreboards vanish. This test shows you exactly how much is missing, and it takes about ten seconds.
Overscan test
This test needs JavaScript to run. The instructions and the fix below still apply, so the page is useful either way.
Five nested frames, one per step
The test fills the screen with colored frames at 0%, 2.5%, 5%, 7.5% and 10% in from the edge. Count how many you can see all four sides of. The first one you can see completely is your overscan figure.
How to read it
Nothing is being cropped.
Mild overscan. Common, and worth turning off.
Significant. You are losing a visible slice of every picture.
The picture is off-center as well as cropped.
How to turn overscan off
Every manufacturer calls it something different, which is a large part of why so few people ever find it. Look for these:
Samsung
Settings, then Picture, then Picture Size Settings. Set Picture Size to 16:9 Standard and switch Fit to Screen on.
LG
Settings, then Picture, then Aspect Ratio. Choose Just Scan, or set Aspect Ratio to Original with Just Scan on.
Sony
Settings, then Display & Sound, then Screen. Set Display Area to Full Pixel.
Panasonic
Picture menu, then Screen Settings, then 16:9 Overscan. Switch it off.
Philips, TCL, Hisense
Usually under Picture, then Picture Format or Aspect Ratio. Look for Unscaled, Native, Dot by Dot or Screen Fit.
If you cannot find it
Some TVs only expose the setting per input, so change it while the affected HDMI source is showing. A few disable it entirely for broadcast television but allow it on HDMI.
What this test can and cannot tell you
Measured directly. What you see is what the panel is showing, so the frame count is real.
Not necessarily the same. Many TVs keep a separate picture setting per HDMI input. A console or set-top box may be cropped even when the browser is not, so check each input that matters.
To the nearest step. The frames are 2.5% apart, so the answer lands in a band rather than on a precise figure. That is enough to know whether it needs fixing.
Worth checking first. If the TV browser draws its own chrome around the page, that is not overscan. The test tries to go fullscreen, but some TV browsers refuse.
Why televisions do this at all
It is a hangover from analogue broadcast
Cathode-ray tubes had imprecise edges and broadcasters hid technical data in the outermost lines of the picture. Zooming in slightly guaranteed the viewer never saw either. That reasoning died with analogue television, but the default lived on.
It costs you sharpness as well as edges
Cropping means the remaining picture has to be stretched back to fill the panel, so a 4K image is no longer mapped one pixel to one pixel. Turning overscan off often makes a set look noticeably crisper, which surprises people.
It is usually on by default
Plenty of televisions still ship with it enabled, particularly on the broadcast tuner input. Most people never look, which is why this is one of the most common and most easily fixed picture faults.
Questions people ask
What is overscan on a TV?
Overscan is when a television zooms the incoming picture slightly and crops the edges, so a few percent of the image never reaches the screen. It dates from analogue broadcasting, where the outer edge of the signal carried technical data that viewers were not meant to see. On a modern digital set it serves no purpose and simply loses part of the picture.
How do I know if my TV has overscan?
Run this test. It draws frames at known distances from the panel edge, and the first frame you can see all four sides of tells you how much is being cropped. If the outermost pink frame and all four corner brackets are visible, nothing is being lost.
Is overscan bad?
Yes, in almost every case. You lose the edges of everything you watch, subtitles can drift off screen, and the remaining picture has to be stretched back up to fill the panel, which softens it. There is no benefit on a modern television.
I turned it off but the picture is still cropped.
Two common causes. Many TVs store the picture setting per input, so switching it off while watching the browser does not change what a games console gets. And some sources, particularly older set-top boxes, crop the image themselves before it reaches the television.
Why can I see the frames on my phone but not my TV?
Because phones and computer monitors do not overscan. The behavior is specific to televisions, which is exactly why this test has to be run on the TV to mean anything.
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