HD on LCD? (1 Viewer)

[Anthony Moore]

I am looking to get a 3.0 P4 with 1GB RAM and the 6600GT video card.

My question is this:

I want to buy a 19" Samsung LCD which only supports like 1280 x 1024 (somewhere around there). Will this do 1080i?

Also, I will be using a dvi connection straight from the 6600GT to the LCD. Ive heard of "upconverting" to 1080i or 720p just from dvds. Will I need anything else to do this upconverting out to my LCD?

Im just trying to get the best quality video out to my LCD. I have all 200 of my movies back up on a terrabyte or so.

Will I need anything else? Any software?

 

[Kimmo Jaskari]

1080p/i are both 1920x1080; the interlaced variant just updates every second line on any screen refresh. Doesn't change the resolution.

A 1280x1024 screen won't be ideal for either 720P or 1080P/I but should be able to display both by scaling them to fit the screen. If you want ideal resolution for 720P you want 1280x720 - not coincidentally a very popular resolution for video projectors in the last couple of years.

Essentially, just by playing your DVD's on a computer you "upconvert" or rather scale them up to the higher resolution - obviously, how else could you take a 720x480 pixels video and show it on the full screen on a 1280x1024 screen?

The fact that the computer can do such a good job at that scaling is one of the reason people like HTPC's.

Taking any HD material and viewing it on the computer will work fine, you can scale down or up and get a very good image. All you need is enough CPU horsepower to do the scaling in real time; it takes quite a machine to show full 1080 HD smoothly.