Need HTPC -> HDTV Connection Advice

[mlbdude]

All,

I will be receiving my new RPTV this Friday. I intend to connect my HTPC to the TV using the DVI (got my DVI to HDMI cable) connection on my nVidia 5700. Please give me any and all advise on how to do this correctly and safely. I know this information is available all over the place so if you know of any good resources that explain it let me know.

Here is the TV I will be using in case the info would help.

http://www.sonystyle.com/is-bin/INTE...tion_42to51TVs

Initial questions that come to mind:

What initial "safe" resolution and refresh rate should I use to connect?
Will I need to use PowerStrip for this?
Is outputting to 1080i possible? How do I do this?
What resolutions should I be able to achieve safely?

Thanks in advance!

[stanger89]

Theoretically, you should just be able to connect a DVI cable from your HTPC to the TV and all will be good

Once that's done, check in the advanced options for your display drivers, they should have options for custom resolutions, including 861B (consumer electronics) compliant resolutions for 1080i. You shouldn't need powerstrip.

As to my general recommendation, start with 640x480 to make sure everything's OK, the try for 1080i.

Good luck, hopefully it all works well for you. I'm really looking forward to trying my new 6800 with the Mits. Just trying to decide if I should go with a Bettercables or Bluejeans Cable breakout cable

-edit,

Oh, and if for some reason DVI doesn't work you may want to try HDMI, theoretically it should work with either, but you never know.

[mikejaner]

I got my 51" Hitachi last week, and it is beautiful. I got the 51S715, which is their new model with the OTA and Cable tuner built in, including the card slot for cable for decrypting HD Cable. Anyways I have strayed....
I have an HDMI interface, so I bought me an DVI to HDMI cable and it worked right off the bat. I set the res to 1920X1080 and it looks great.

This is all on my Pundit-R which is ATI IGP based.

Mike

[JasonJoel]

NICE!!! I'm jeleous.

Wish my 65" Toshiba RP TV had an HDMI or DVI connector. Oh well. Next TV.

Jason

[rwn]

mlbdude,

I wish you the best of luck getting it connected via the DVI, but I wouldn't hold your breath. I have a Sony HDTV as well, and I couldn't ever get it to work (or at least work well) via the DVI connector.

My TV, a 51WS500 (maybe a generation older than yours), reports crazy resolutions back to the computer... so the image is always either greatly overscanned or underscanned. I believe that Sony is actually trying to make it not work. I researched this for a while on www.avsforum.com, and nobody there had been able to get it to work with this TV (or most Sony TV's).

The only workable solution that I know of is to use a VGA Transcoder and use the Component Video inputs on the TV.

Hope this helps,

rwn

[g808]

I have this 46" RP Sony HDTV.

I have my HTPC hooked up to it via DVI from my ATI 9600 (non-pro) with Catalyst 4.8 drivers. It worked right off the bat. I just had to go into the display properties "Troubleshooting" tab and "force" HD resolutions. The desktop is a little overscanned, but with SageTV's ability to correct for this it's not a problem.

Sorry if this was no help since you have an nvidia 5700. Just wanted to let you know it's possible to hook up a HTPC to a Sony HDTV via DVI. There just might be an issue with nvidia drivers not playing nicely with some TVs/projectors due to the mysterious "EDID bug" that everyone at the avsforums alludes to.

[mlbdude]

Well, I have wrestled with this all weekend. Here are my results.

Started with the FX 5700 via DVI latest drivers.

Switched to 1080i right in the drivers. Looks beautiful.

Problems:
1. Upon restart the video drivers would revert to another resolution that is not exactly supported by the TV. Have to make my way to the Display Properties each time and reset to 1080i. Not too bad, don't reboot this thing too often.

2. Every now and then the video card would cut out and the screen would go black. Only way to get it back, reboot, or easier trick to put PC in Standby and bring it back. This is is unacceptable.

Went to ATI 9600 via DVI latest drivers.

Problems:
1. Drivers don't detect the display properly. I was able to go into troubleshooting and force 1080i. However, Display Properties listed another value. Every application that I launch that uses DX9 forces the display back to this other resolution whenever the application exits. Unacceptable.

2. After reboot resolution does not stick and has to be forced back to 1080i.

Global problem (not really a problem). Video recorded from 250's at highest bittrate looks horrible. Much worse than before. Upon investigation, they always looked that bad. Just never noticed on the SD display.

Now on FX 5700 via SVideo latest drivers.

Looks like crap compared to DVI out. However, it does look much better than on the SD TV and the video looks better too since it is not displaying at such a detailed resolution.

That is where I am at now. Despite the video looking better on SVideo, I would still prefer to run DVI. However, the problems I had with it make it not worth it. If anyone has any good solutions let me know.

One other option I could try is to do Component via the ATI. However, I really don't like the ATI as much as the nVidia now that I have some newer NVDVD decoders.

Thanks all!

[mikejaner]

Global problem (not really a problem). Video recorded from 250's at highest bittrate looks horrible. Much worse than before. Upon investigation, they always looked that bad. Just never noticed on the SD display.

hehe, I hear ya. My wife fell in love with HDTV shows in the first week, then eventually said, "why does all of the shows on SageTV look bad now?" I tried to explain that we are now watching the same videos on a TV screen 3x the size. She wasn't convinced. I ended up buying the ATI HDTV Wonder, and started recording shows in HD to make her happy ;-) Of course, I transfer them into Sage TV to watch them.

Also, remember the colors were set up to look properly out of the Svideo before, or at least in my case. I had to tweak the colors the cards were recording in to make them look as good as possible on the HDTV.

My $0.02

[mls]

For the ATI you may need the DVI to Component adapter with the switchs set for it to properly sense which modes you want for HD. Not sure, just a quess. There's some other stuff on there web site about making custom settings and such, but I'll assume you looked thru all that already.

[mlbdude]

Yeah, with HDTV and all I am not sure where my Sage box will end up in the near future. I think if my local cable company were to offer an HTDV PVR I would probably jump on it. I am also looking at VOOM. They seem to have a nice PVR coming out but who knows when.

I guess till then I will just have to live with it .

Thanks!

[mlbdude]

Just an update. Got the ATI component adapter, put back in my ATI 9600 and everything works great! Before this I was using the nVidia 5700 via DVI. 1080i does not work with the latest drivers but 720p was working well. Bad part was my TV had to scale the image to 1080i so I often had some scaling artifacts and of couse slightly less quality.

With the ATI at 1080i the artifacts are gone and the sharpness is outstanding. I will probalby try the nVidia again once they fix that driver problem.