HD Projector for G5/Mac Pro

[Gigolo Joe]

I was wondering if anyone has experience hooking up an HD projector to Desktop Macs.
I've been researching suitable 1080p projectors and demoed the new Panasonic AE1000 (Incredible machine - even with Standard DVD.. although haven't seen the latest JVC DLA HD1 yet).

My questions are:
Can you output 1920x1080 through DVI-HDMI cable out of the Geforce 6800 card on my G5? My system preferences show 1920x1200 as the nearest match but is this suitable for a 1080p native projector?

What is the best way to run Standard DVDs off a Mac into an HD projector? Is the scaling of the picture (in VLC, DVD Player) into Fullscreen suitable/better than making the projector do all the up-scaling?

Am I missing any obvious drawbacks/impossibilities to this method or is there a tried and tested way?

And what is the significance of HDCP in all this?

Anyway, thanks if anyone can enlighten me..

 

[amtctt]

well, interesting questions, i don't know for a fact, but i believe i've heard that with 10.5 you'll be able to do whatever res you want. so you can do the 1080 then. Also, with the dvd player software apple uses now, i think i've read that it doesn't really upscale, but in the 10.5 dvd player it might. an upscaling dvd player through hdmi would probably be a little bit better. but maybe not enough to warrant more $$. Hopefully with 10.5 you'll be able to get the most out of your dvds.

 

[Gigolo Joe]

PowerMac for Home Cinema - a good idea?

with the dvd player software apple uses now, i think i've read that it doesn't really upscale, but in the 10.5 dvd player it might. an upscaling dvd player through hdmi would probably be a little bit better. but maybe not enough to warrant more $$. Hopefully with 10.5 you'll be able to get the most out of your dvds.

Thanks for your reply... I'm not sure if the player software is important in upscaling to fullscreen or if it is osx doing the work. It does an excellent job with SD DVD on my 23" Apple Screen, but this is 1920x1200 not 1080 so I'm not even sure if 1080p is an option when you add a second monitor like a projector..

In any case, the projector I saw was pretty close to the 'filmic' cinema look I've ever seen from a digital pj, and it scaled up from a normal DVD player. So is there a benefit to scaling up DVDs on the Mac side, or is there a way to output standard DVD size video from the DVI ports?

Cheers!

 

[Dreadnought]

Hook the projector as the only "monitor" to your mac. Then it would probably be possible to get the 1900*1080 resolution. BTW, it also depands on your video card. The 6800 is a bit pre-HD. This can be a problem.