hdtv as monitor

getting REALLY annoyed with this. got my dvi to hdmi plugged into my 37" 1080i hdtv and my asus 9600xt 128mb agp graphics card...
everytime i try and install official drivers with the control panel they ALWAYS never work.the control panel never does.
so i tried omega but thats no good cause i can't switch to a tv output in hd etc...
and now im on some random dec 07 classic ati hacked drivers off a site i found... and when i finally get to the tab to enable it as a tv... its got a red X on everything... apparently my pc's connected to a "FPD" what is this:S says my maximum resolution is 1920x1080 and i go on this and it looks terrible and is running at 30Hz :crazy::crazy::eek:
so at the moment I'm on 1280x720 which again looks terrible and fuzzy and thats at 50/60hz (60 atm)
i've tried 50 and its no different.
what the hell is going on why does the official ATi drivers never work for me:S
asus a7n8x-x
amd xp-m overclocked @ 2.2ghz
1gb ram
asus 9600xt 128mb agp...
please help I'm so angry as it was my cable too nearly a week to arrive (so much for 1-2days RMSD)
and now I'm looking at a waste of time effort of having moved my entire room around to compensate my pc being next to my HD setup...
I'm not impressed.
please help I don't know what to do and how to enable a proper HD resolution and to make it output to HDTV mode not as a "FPD" :S? whatever that is. or a LCD monitor. its not 16:9 either its some warped res thinking its square when obviously its a widescreen tv...
very screwed up and the colours arent very clear either...

what model screen is it?

Here is a good thread to have a look at http://forums.hexus.net/audio-visual...tv-mythtv.html it goes to explain why some TVs are really bad at being monitors.

Have you looked at Powerstrip to force the resolution you want?

30hz is correct for 1080i

and FPD would be "flat panel display"

there's a reason everyone says "don't" r.e. using an hdtv as a regular monitor

Does the TV have a VGA or DVI port? You'd be much better off just using the VGA port if it has one.

I've used both my LCD's as monitors for a short time , both were connected by VGA and looked perfect.

oh, one other point - unless it's a 1080p set, then it's very probably 1366x768

and if it is, 720p is being scaled up (and will look blurry), 1080i is being scaled down (and will look blurry)