Using a PC connection to Plasma TV, is it HDTV? (1 Viewer)

[Tien_N]

I have a question. Has anyone ever hooked up their PC to their plasma TV to watch primarily DVDs?

A friend of mine plans on building a PC, installing a 500gig hard drive and ripping all of his DVDs to the hard drive so he can watch DVDs of of his plasma TV? Since the PC has a DVI output, would this be considered HD? Can this be done?

Any similar articles would be great.

 

[Scott L]

First of all DVDs aren't HD s the short answer is no. Check the resolution on the plasma to see if it can display at least 720p. There are no 1080p plasmas yet.

 

[Bob Doseck]

Tien,
Plasmas are considered "HD" if they have a resolution of 1024 x 768 or higher. Scott is correct that DVDs right now are not HD and that there are no 1080p plasmas. Most plasmas that have 1024 x 758 or higher resolution will display 720p and 1080i. That being said, if you build an HTPC (Home Theater PC), and provide it with the correct signal, you will be able to get HD on your plasma via a DVI connection on your computer. Please email me if you have any questions.

Thanks,
Bob Doseck
Plasma Concepts
[email protected]

 

[Tien_N]

Ok great. So what would the difference be with using a Progressive Scan DVD player compared to the PC displaying the signal, besides the DVI output? So would the DVD quality be 480i only signal or is there a way to adjust the pc to display in 480p if I use the PC? I'm not sure of the DVD conversion with a DVD rom on a pc?

Plus, is there an HD tuner card I can install on the PC as well (can anyone recommend any?) to display it in HD form? Or are there only regular type tuner cards, such at ATI all-in-wonder products. Thanks again!

 

[ChrisWiggles]

See the HTPC forums here and elsewhere. Many many many people do this, and basically your computer scales everything to whatever resolution you want, and it can output HD to anything. IT is essentially acting as a high-end video processor.

Yes you can get tuner cards for OTA HD on your computer too. You can also get input capture cards, and feed all your sources via your computer and use it to process all your video sources, not just DVD, or OTA HD. You can do pretty much anything, whole system automation, the works.