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Dell 2005FPW and HDTV TV?

Over Achiever

Over Achiever

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Jul 22, 2002
1,696
0
Toledo, OH, formerly Twin Cities, MN
I'm very interesting in buying this LCD, but I'd like to ask ... how is the picture quality when viewing over the air HDTV signals (or any HDTV for that matter). I know the 24" is fully HDTV compatible, how about the different resolution of the 20"? Does anyone know how they convert the signal?

Also I know the Dell supports PIP ... what are the options when viewing TV? Also if I'm viewing HDTV, is the aspect ratio of the smaller picture changed to reflect the widescreen aspect?

Many thanks for those that have the LCD and an HDTV signal and try out the different options. ^^

-OA

PS I know the display features a built in card reader, does that connect to the computer via USB? Is there an in display option to view the images on the card as a slide show? I know several Sony TVs that have that extra option.
 
I don't have an HDTV box so I cannot comment on how it would display an HDTV signal, but the 2005fpw does NOT have a card reader (I think the 2405 does though).
 
You're right, only the 2405FPW has the card reader, not the 2005FPW.

I don't have a HD signal connected to my 2405FPW, but the HD movie trailers on Apple's website look pretty sweet :)

And by the way, I was surprised at how well SD DVDs looked on this monitor too. It looks good even from just a couple feet back.
 
It won't be able to display the full resolution of 1080i, but it will still look fantastic. Keep in mind that a lot of $5000 plasma displays don't display full 1080i either. The DVI port is not HDCP-compliant, so you will need to either 1) get an Eye TV 500 and watch through your Mac; 2) get a DTV set-top box that has an RGB HD15 output and hook that up to the HD15 input of the 2005FPW; 3) use any DTV set-top box with a component-to-RGB converter and hook that up to the HD15 input of the 2005FPW.
 
Oops

Didn't realize that 20" didn't come with the card reader ... I was looking forward to connivence of it, but I don't have a need for the extra 4" so don't pay for more than I have to. ^^

Only thing is I don't know if the 20" will display the HD stuff as well as the 24" because of the down-processing of the signal.
 
alex_ant said:
It won't be able to display the full resolution of 1080i, but it will still look fantastic. Keep in mind that a lot of $5000 plasma displays don't display full 1080i either. The DVI port is not HDCP-compliant, so you will need to either 1) get an Eye TV 500 and watch through your Mac; 2) get a DTV set-top box that has an RGB HD15 output and hook that up to the HD15 input of the 2005FPW; 3) use any DTV set-top box with a component-to-RGB converter and hook that up to the HD15 input of the 2005FPW.
Click to expand...
Right I realize that, but many of the plasma/DLP/LCD projection displays have a standard resolution of 1280x800 or 1366x768 (I forget what it is) so the 1680x1050 is kinda an oddball.

However connectivity that does seem to be a problem I hadn't thought about ... didn't realize the DVI wasn't HDCP compliant. =/
 
Over Achiever said:
Right I realize that, but many of the plasma/DLP/LCD projection displays have a standard resolution of 1280x800 or 1366x768 (I forget what it is) so the 1680x1050 is kinda an oddball.

However connectivity that does seem to be a problem I hadn't thought about ... didn't realize the DVI wasn't HDCP compliant. =/
Click to expand...
The 2005FPW is 16:10, and HDTV is 16:9, so you will see (small) black bars on the top & bottom of the screen. 1680x1050 is uncommon, but the 2005FPW should sync with any signal equal to or lower than that and scale it up automatically. If you are going to use a set-top box, I think you would have to have it output 720p, since the monitor won't sync to 1080i and since the box probably doesn't have an option for "1680p." It should still look great, even though 720p is not the monitor's native resolution.

I wouldn't worry too much about the DVI port not being HDCP compliant. If you use a good short cable, the quality difference of RGB vs. DVI will be virtually imperceptible, especially at only 720p. And if you're already using the DVI output on your computer, keep in mind that the 2005FPW only has 1 DVI port, so using the RGB output on the set top box would mean you wouldn't have to buy a DVI switcher. The reason manufacturers are pushing HDMI/DVI-HDCP is not because of better quality, it's because they want to restrict what you can do with your equipment, at the urging of content providers.
 
alex_ant said:
and since the box probably doesn't have an option for "1680p." It should still look great, even though 720p is not the monitor's native resolution.
Click to expand...

Not to snip... but isn't it "1050p" that you would want? That is, don't those numbers refer to vertical resolution (scanlines)? It's a shame there isn't an easy way to get the 2005FPW to pretend to be 1080p. Lopping 15 scan lines off the top and the bottom would seem pretty harmless and you'd get something closer to a native res signal.
 
mkrishnan said:
Not to snip... but isn't it "1050p" that you would want? That is, don't those numbers refer to vertical resolution (scanlines)? It's a shame there isn't an easy way to get the 2005FPW to pretend to be 1080p. Lopping 15 scan lines off the top and the bottom would seem pretty harmless and you'd get something closer to a native res signal.
Click to expand...
Right... 1050p. My bad. But although only 15 lines would be lost vertically, 240 would be lost horizontally, or something like that, I suck at math.
 
Get the 2005FPW and be happy. It displays 720p (1280x720 Progressive) just fine. Sure it can't do 1080i (1920x1080 INTERLACED), but interlacing looks like crap on computer monitors anyway. And forget about 1080p (1920x1080 Progressive) because that material isn't available anywhere yet and won't be for 6-12 months and even then will be expensive.
 
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