DVI out to HDTV???

[Grimace]

If I wanted some serious screen real estate, I could hook up my powerbook via S-Video cable to my TV. It looks pretty crappy. It's an old school 32" tube.

But, my friend has an HDTV with a DVI input in the back. Would this approach or equal the quality of a computer monitor because of the DVI input??

It's hard to look at the Apple Cinema Displays without comparing prices to bigger screens that serve as TVs as well...for cheaper.

 

[TEG]

Although some HDTVs have DVI inputs, you must check to make sure that the system being used is compatible. To My Knowledge, most HDTVs, with out integrated tuners, have DVI for connection to HDTV recievers, most of which have DVI out. I am unaware of the differences between HD-DVI and PC-DVI, but I was reading the manual for my Aunt and Uncle's HDTV reciever, and it says that only certain devices are compatible with HD-DVI. However the HDTV Monitor may be capable of recieveing and understanding PD-DVI, but I'd check with the manufacturer first.

TEG

 

[Lanbrown]

HDTV uses a variety of formats, like 1080i, 720p, 480i and 480p among others. Part of the problem was that the TV side didn't want to be compatible with the computer side. Hence why you see i instead of p. The computer industry abandoned i long ago. What does this mean, the interface is the same, but the support isn't there. You can buy a computer system with PCI slots, but that is just a bus technology and there are plenty of cards that would not work, even though they are PCI. Some of the TV manufacturers put a VGA port on the TV so a computer can be hooked up to it.

 

[Grimace]

This Sony is what I'm thinking of putting it into:

 

[matt.bauer]

OK with an HD Projector

My father has an HD projector and we hooked up his computer to it with a composite video cable to look at digital pictures. Even with the composite video it looked great on the huge screen. Resolution was fine.

It had various resolution "modes" and he had to figure out which one worked. If you have not bought the HDTV set yet I am sure you can find one with the ability to connect to the computer.

 

[bcstanding]

DVI is an interface, like S-Video or composite or VGA...

You should be able to connect the DVI output on your Mac to the DVI input on the TV, but you'll need to set the Mac's display resolution to something that is accepted by the TV. This is most likely 1920x1080 [at 60Hz I think]. (I'm assuming it is a 1080i native TV. If you hook it up to a projector, then you might want to try 1280x720 which is 720p.)

If your video card won't do that, the TV will try to scale the input. Without knowing the exact video card and the exact HDTV you are talking about, I can't tell you what to do for best results. If you just want to get it to work, I'd bet you would be able to do that without any trouble.

Also, High Definition is 720p, 1080i, and 1080p (not 480i or 480p). The "i" is an interlaced signal (like a standard TV), and the "p" is a progressive signal (like an LCD screen)...

As to how it would look in comparison to a computer monitor - I'm sure it would look good if not great (if the TV has to scale the input because your video card won't do 1920x1080, then it will still probably look good but not as good as it could be).