Re: Slightly o/t: PC on widescreen telly

Marky.

I, too have been struggling with this problem. I have a Media Centre PVR whichI want to output on a 16:9 analogue telly & a an XGA projector.I believe we both have a fudemental problem. Your monitor is 4:3, your TV is 16:9 & a lot of want you want to watch off DVD is 2.35:1. You can have either a reasonable 16:9 display on the telly & a crap display on the monitor or vice versa. You can find a 16:9 screen template for the PC which makes it display Windows reasonably well on the telly but you have to fudge it for the monitor. If you have a true 1024x768 telly with non-square pixels then you have to do something on the graphics card to correct for this. HDMI graphics cards are just becoming available but they are fairly expensive & bloody noisy (fans that wouldn't be out of place on the back of a hovercraft). I have seen an announcement for a passively cooled Radeon 6600 with HDMI/HDCP which is coming out in October. This seems more what we need but no prices are yet available & you do need a full height case & probably two free slots to accommodate the heat pipes & heat sinks.

I have not yet made the move to HD so I have solved the problem by using a VGA-composite converter which allows me to scale & position the picture so that it is acceptable on the monitor & looks OK on the 16:9 telly or my 1024x768 (4:3) projector.

I believe that our problem will become most other people's problem as HD becomes more mainstream. This suggests that the problem will have to be addressed sooner rather than later. However, at present, I think HD is very much "bleeding edge" technology & the best approach is to stay with the absinthe & wait until the technology matures & reduces in price. If you consume enough on a regular basis, you won't notice the crap pictures. I use London Pride, myself!



In article <jjvdg2de23hraa4bpjupsq8t6lpo22k349@xxxxxxx>, Marky P <bromham_hospital_band@xxxxxxxxxxx> writes
On Tue, 12 Sep 2006 07:17:22 +0100, Rob
<rmovethispatchoulian@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Rob wrote:
Marky P wrote:
On Mon, 11 Sep 2006 10:20:58 +0100, Michael Rozdoba
<mroz@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Marky P wrote:
On Sun, 10 Sep 2006 13:15:51 +0100, Rob
<rmovethispatchoulian@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Marky P wrote:
On Sun, 10 Sep 2006 00:37:03 +0100, Michael Rozdoba
<mroz@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Mike Henry wrote:

IIRC Marky's TV is a plasma, not a LCD, and it's 1024 x 768
(16:0) which
means it has non-square pixels. If he were to pick a
"widescreen" PC
display mode (eg 1366 x 768) I'm not sure what would happen...
It would display correctly I imagine, albeit with reduced
horizontal resolution; certainly the aspect ratio should be correct.

I use that res on XP with a PDP-433MXE whose native res is
1024x768, with no problems.
I can't go any higher than 1024 x 768. My telly displays 'Not
Supported' :-( Bugger.

Mine's similar. So, I've connected it via the component output of
the graphics card (a nvidea), which has various utilities to output
at HD res, and an option to scale the picture. Looks pretty good to
me.

Rob
My graphics card only has S-video out,
Oh, well, no wonder then. Doesn't the TV have a vga, dvi or hdmi
input? How far is it from the PC?


I'm not using the S-video out, I'm using the monitor connection
straight to the PC socket on the telly. Oddly enough, the 50" version
on my telly supports the higher resolution, but I either have to
settle with 4:3 or stretched 16:9 (which is ok for newsgroups but not
pictures). Perhaps Windows Vista will have more options.

Marky P.


I'm not sure this 'native' thing can be done in software - the TV can
accept the resolution or it can't.

I'm in a similar position to you - I'd suggest getting a new video card
- the 6600GT with component out/720p I have does a decent job after a
lot of fiddling. Or perhaps one of the new HDMI cards once a few reviews
are out:


http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/products/index.html?action=c2hvd19wcm9k
dWN0X292ZXJ2aWV3=&product_uid=113171&_LOC=UK


Rob

A review:

http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=6199&page=4


That sounds ok. Not toooooo expensive. I may give it a go.

Marky P.


--
Keith Bailey
.

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