PC to HD TV connection?

[WayneW]

What are the guidelines for hooking a PC to a modern TV, assuming the TV doesn't have a PC DB15 input? Both of the TVs I have started looking at (Toshiba & Samsung) say that their HDMI input cannot be used for PC input. Why? I thought you would just use a DVI-HDMI adapter and go?

 

[Micah]

My Hitachi manual says the same thing and it's a load of bunk.

Try to find what the native resolution for the TV is (unless it's a RPTV, in which case it won't have one) and run that resolution over a DVI->HDMI cable/converter or a HDMI cable if your video card has a HDMI connector.

 

[WayneW]

Any idea why the TV manufacturers say that? Are they afraid that sending a "bad" signal would harm the TV?

Don't DLP & LCD RPTVs have a native resolution? Were you referring to CRT RPTV? The DLPs I am looking at claim to be 1920 x 1080

 

[Micah]

Last part first: you're right. I meant CRT RPTVs don't have a native resolution. DLP, LCD, and Plasmas all have a native resolution and whatever that resolution is is what you should set your PC resolution to.

I have heard that you can fry your TV if you send it a "bad" signal. Having said that, I sent my TV all kinds of bad signals before I figured out what I was doing and it still works just fine. I've also heard, and I figure this is probably the bigger reason, that TV manufacturers didn't want to deal with the tech support issue of people calling in to say their TV is broken when it was actually a settings problem with the PC. I think that's pretty much been solved at this point now that nVidia and ATI are including 16:9 resolutions in their drivers. Before you had to use Powerstrip to force the video card to display what you wanted but with just a few exceptions for the occasional odd resolution displays, Powerstrip is no longer necessary.

 

[jwilson56]

My Samsung HLS-5687S DLP I recently bought has a HDMI 1080p input that will upscale anything to 1080p. My ATI 9600 card is only capable of 720p and it works fine. I need to find a cheap APG card that does 1080p. I also have read that Nvidia is better for HDTV.

John