PowerBook to 42" Plasma ?

liketom said:

well i am at work and i have a man round my house installing a 42" Hitachi plasma screen with a Hardon Kardon surround sound

anyway

you all know what i want to do with it ! POWERBOOK to PLASMA

DVI on PowerBook and DVI on Plasma


what do i need to know ? what sort of screen res can i get ?

Pictures will be posted when i get it working

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It'll probably let you go to 1920 x 1080, but there's not a 1920 x 1080 native plasma on the planet. I'd suggest 1280 x 720, especially if it's a 1024 x 768 w/ stretched pixels plasma display. It might also suggest a 13something by something else mode, which could be its native res, depending on the quality of the display.

It should look pretty awesome on there. I've tried my 12" Powerbook on a Plasma screen w/ the DVI port and it was impressive

To get it to work, just plug in, and you may have to hit the "Fn" + "F7" keys on your keyboard at the same time to mirror the image. That's it!

Photos Please !

liketom said:

what do i need to know ? what sort of screen res can i get?

Click to expand...

I really think it will just be plug-n-play, though, it will probably take some time to find the proper resolution (unstretched). Either way, it will no doubt be impressive.

I can't wait to see the pictures!

I have been wondering about this awesome. My dad is obsessed with getting a plasma, and when I heard that the one he was looking at had DVI ports, my eyes lit up. Thanks for the info fellas, I will definately be trying this as soon as the TV gets installed in the living room...

John Lewis in Oxford St had a Mac Mini running OS X and iTunes on a 42" plasma... but they obviously hadn't spent any time tweaking it or figuring out the best resolution. I nearly caused a pile up at the top of the escalator when I spotted it and had to reverse...

what resolution did it turn out to be?

Not the right one, judging by those photos. Ew! Get the correct screen shape, please! It's all stretched.

Cless said:

Not the right one, judging by those photos. Ew! Get the correct screen shape, please! It's all stretched.

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I'd say that he's got it set on 1024x768 since that's the native resolution for all 42" HDTV plasmas on the market right now, with the exception of the ALiS interlaced panels. Although many Hitachis have the ALiS panels.

Anyways, liketom could try using SwitchResX or DisplayConfigX to get a better resolution, such as 1280x720 (aka 720p) or 1280x768. The plasma should be able to take that resolution and scale it. The text may be a little fuzzy (since the pixels are rectangular), but it'll be usable.

If it does turn out to be an ALiS panel, I don't know what your options are.

k

one day ! one damn day i will be able to afford that set up !
thats what i keep telling myself anyway but thats looks stunning geezer
now to rob a bank

It's looking good!

Seems like a pretty seamless plug-n-play system. Can't wait to see pics of proper screen resolution!

Isn't there a pretty significant risk of burned-in images with plasma?

ftaok said:

I'd say that he's got it set on 1024x768 since that's the native resolution for all 42" HDTV plasmas on the market right now, with the exception of the ALiS interlaced panels. Although many Hitachis have the ALiS panels.

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I'm not disputing that native resolution, but what would possess a manufacturer to produce an HDTV display that does not support the HD aspect ratio: 16:9 (or 1.78:1)? 1024x768 is only 4:3 (or 1.33:1).

dejo said:

I'm not disputing that native resolution, but what would possess a manufacturer to produce an HDTV display that does not support the HD aspect ratio: 16:9 (or 1.78:1)? 1024x768 is only 4:3 (or 1.33:1).

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The reason that plasma manufacturers make screens with 1024x768 resolutions is that they don't have the ability to create pixels that small in the Horizontal direction. So what they do is make the pixel rectangular. The human eye can't resolve detail in the horizontal as well as it can in the vertical direction. That's why even with the rectangular pixels, HD on 16:9 1024x768 screens look great.

Right now, only 50" plasmas use square pixels in a 16:9ish ratio. Usually, 50" screens are built at 1280x768 or 1366x768.

GanChan said:

Isn't there a pretty significant risk of burned-in images with plasma?

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That pretty much is a thing of the past. The manufacturers have gotten so good with different manufacturing and operating techniques, that you really don't have to worry too much about burn in.

What you do have to do is keep the brightness and contrast down during the 1st 1000 hours of use. You also don't want to have the letterbox (or pillarbox) bars on for an extended period of time during the break-in period. Another thing you don't want to do is leave a static image on the screen for too long, which is exactly what a computer might do. So if I were to use a Mac with a plasma, I would set the screen saver to come on after a minute or so. I would also use a screen saver that changed the screen often (probably a picture slide show). And I wouldn't use an application on too long, otherwise the menu bar might cause problems.