Analog or Digital from PC to Television??

[pgman]

I bought my HDTV two weeks ago and I just ordered a new video card for my PC ('cause my old one just doesn't look that good on the HD display). I got the MSI (nVidia) 7600GT with 2 DVI outputs, VIVIO and HDCP compliance. Should I use the adaptor that comes with this card and go HD15 analog to my television's analog PC input (like I am currently) or would I be better to go DVI out into my television's HDMI input? In the television manual, it says you can't connect a PC to the HDMI inputs, but I am guessing this is beacuse of the HDCP issue. Since my new video board is HDCP compliant, might it work anyway? Sorry, I am still new to this but I am eager to learn.

My television's native resolution is 1920x1080 (its a Samsung DLP) and they recommend using that resolution with the PC input. What doesn't make sense, though, is that when I set my HTPC for that resolution, the image doesn't fill the whole screen and I can't find any adjustment to stretch it out. Also, when I open Sage with this resolution, I only see part of the screen

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by pgman

In the television manual, it says you can't connect a PC to the HDMI inputs, but I am guessing this is beacuse of the HDCP issue.

It's because they don't want to support PCs on that connection. They'll work fine, HDCP or no. Just pick up an HDMI cable from monoprice.

My television's native resolution is 1920x1080 (its a Samsung DLP) and they recommend using that resolution with the PC input. What doesn't make sense, though, is that when I set my HTPC for that resolution, the image doesn't fill the whole screen and I can't find any adjustment to stretch it out. Also, when I open Sage with this resolution, I only see part of the screen

Not sure about that one, usually the problem is the desktop is too big for the TV.

[Mark SS]

Unfortunately the whole HTPC to TV issue is a bit of a minefield. Some sets will work DVI-HDMI, some will work with VGA, some will be hopeless with both.

Theres at least one post a week on AVForums asking about this and unfortunately someone will always chime in with "HDMI is the way to go, it was like night and day compared to VGA!" which is useless information. It will depend on the particular TV and graphics card.

Don't know anything about your set so I'd suggest asking the question on www.avsforum.com or www.avforums.com if nobody here has the same TV.

Best advice for an HTPC is to choose a TV that is known to work 1:1 with DVI-HDMI from a PC from the outset.

[malore]

Is the HDTV the only monitor connected to your video card? If not is the HDTV treated as a seperate monitor or a clone of the computer monitor? Does your TV support 1080p, if so have you tried both 1080i and 1080p. I would also try 720p for comparison. Around the same location of the nvidia settings that set the TV output format you should find settings for overscan and underscan.

[corykim]

Agreed, it depends entirely on the equipment. I am getting wonderful results on DVI. Using HDMI, I get sparklies at 1080p. I connect to a friend's Sony XBR SXRD Tv, with 1080p native resolution, and couldn't get it to sync properly. The best I could do was 720p on that TV, and even then it looked like a$$.

[pgman]

I got a new video card since my last post (an MSI 7600GT with dual DVI / RGBHV outputs and VIVO). I am still using the RGBHV (PC) input on my television, which is 1080p. However, when I try 1080 resolutions, I can not get the image to fill my television screen and the "window" I do see won't display the full SageTV image (not the home menu or anything else, for that matter). At the 720 (or 768) resolutions everything seems okay, but I know there must be some conversion going on at the television's input, and I always thought the goal was to feed the input of the display with its native resolution.

I haven't tried the RGB (component) outputs of this video card, so I don't know if that would make any difference, and I am still struggling with picture quality issues - mostly "mosquitos" in my HD picture and occasionally hard lines in static images that appear to jump back and forth. The truth is, I just don't know enough yet about all the settings and what they do to make good choices here. Also, in darker scenes, there still appears to be some noticable transitions between darker shades of grey or brown (although this is not anything near what it was before with my ATi card). I am almost there, but I just can't seem to find all the right settings.