Getting the BEST out of my Graphics Card and Monitor

[SE14man]

Hi and merry xmas to everyone here at VH.

Just splashed out on some new PC things.

New Alienware HDMI 23" Monitor.
ATI Radeon HD 5670 Graphics Card
PC is Quad Core with 4 GB RAM.
Cable from monitor to PC is HDMI.
Just installed K Lite Codec pack.
Running Windows 7.

Is what im doing so far ok??

2ndly what do you guys recommend for the absolute best quality settings for video playback with AVI, 1080, x264, 720p etc?
Would these settings need to be adjusted in ATI Catalyst Control Centre, WMP, VLC or all 3 of them?
If so, what settings would i need to adjust to get the best video quality in playback?

Another question is, when i go to adjust my screen resolution to maximum (1920x1080) i get black borders going all round the edge of my screen.. I have updated to the latest ATI driver and i sitll get the borders...

How do i make it so my screen can be 1920x1080 so that it will fill up the whole screen and look even?

Cos at the moment i have it set to: 1680x1050 and with this setitng, it does fill up the screen properly but i tohught that having it on this setting would make video playback quality worse?

Pls let me know guys.

Thank you.

[edDV]

Set display card to monitor native resolution.

Set monitor to not overscan.

Then work on your chosen player for full screen playback.

K Lite codec pack was probably a mistake.

[jagabo]

If your monitor isn't 16:9 (and many computer monitors aren't) then a 16:9 movie should not fill the screen. If your monitor is 1680x1050 its aspect ratio is 16:10, not 16:9. MPC has the option to zoom and crop ("touch window from outside") or distort to the screen size ("stretch to window").

[SE14man]

many thanks 4 yr help there guys.