HDTV and PC Question

[thebob101]

I have a Phillips 32" LCD HDTV with HDMI and I want to hook my PC up to it. Does anyone know if using an HDMI to DVI (24 pin) cord will work to use the TV as a monitor and play games on.

Thanks in advance for the advice.

[NoRain]

I don't know, but I've been meaning to try it out for awhile. I am sure it will work, but I don't know if its gonna give you a nice picture on text and what not. I wanna hear the story of someone who did this and I wanna hear that it looked almost as good as a true monitor.

[Duo_Maxwell]

I don't know, but I've been meaning to try it out for awhile. I am sure it will work, but I don't know if its gonna give you a nice picture on text and what not. I wanna hear the story of someone who did this and I wanna hear that it looked almost as good as a true monitor.

I would think it would still look pretty sharp, text and all. The highest resolution that monitors (typically) use now is 1920 x 1080 (or 1080p), but alot still have a lower native resolution (especially monitors purchased as packages in retail stores). Most LCD HDTVs have a resolution of 720p. Now that maybe about half the pixels of 1080p, but unless your about 6 inches from the screen chances are you won't notice the difference on somehting like a 32" screen. Still the larger a LCD screen you get the less sharp things like text may become.

Oh and for the OP, if you plan on watching any hi-def TV you'll probably need that HDMI port (unless it has two), so you may want to invest in a switcher. They are pretty inexpensive via monoprice.com.

[thebob101]

The HDTV has 2 HDMI ports and can display at 1080 dpi. As soon as I get some concrete info, I am going to try. The cords are expensive so I want to see if it will work before I make the investment. I have a lot of PC games I want to play on the large screen.

[Pootie Thang]

You will need a seperate audio cable because DVI - HDMI doesn't include audio. Anyways I am playing on my Sony 60" SXRD XBR @ 1776x1000 resolution and it works great.

[Duo_Maxwell]

The HDTV has 2 HDMI ports and can display at 1080 dpi. As soon as I get some concrete info, I am going to try. The cords are expensive so I want to see if it will work before I make the investment. I have a lot of PC games I want to play on the large screen.

1920 X 1080 is the native resolution or does it simply "scale" the image to like 1080i? IF it is 1080p then you should no problems at all (the only posisble hang up I can think of is HDCP problems, but I doubt that'd be an issue)

Also go to www.monoprice.com already... You could get a cable for around $10, or $20-25 for a slightly higher quality cable.

[Michaellvortega]

The HDTV has 2 HDMI ports and can display at 1080 dpi. As soon as I get some concrete info, I am going to try. The cords are expensive so I want to see if it will work before I make the investment. I have a lot of PC games I want to play on the large screen.


$10 TOPS at monoprice.com (If you dont see the asian baby to the side you just been taken for a ride!). That is not expensive. Hope you have a good video card that can play games at decently high resolutions.

[Vinny]

Yeah, get the cord from monoprice.com. Sure it's probably not as good as those $150 cables are Best Buy but I doubt you'll notice a difference worth justifying $140 more.

Theorically, you should be able to run a resolution of 720 vertical lines at the least using your DVI output from your computer. DVI and HDMI do not differ in image bandwidth at all (or by much).

My LCD has 1050 vertical lines and can run 1080i but not 1080p. The reason it can't run 1080p is because I'm 30 vertical lines short and pro scan needs every single line. It can run 1080i because it just compresses the image. I believe that's how all HD displays work but I'm not 100% sure.

[headpiece747]

I have done exactly what you are asking for with a DVI-HDMI cable to my HDTV and it comes out perfect and if you have a Nvidia card then you can switch the output to digital and the quality is even better. The text is crisp and easy to read.

[bmsdaddy]

I hooked my PC up to my 32" Westinghouse LCD. Used DVI and it looked great. Played NFSMW on it with no problems. Tried Civ 4 but it gave me an error no matter what settings I tried. Cant remember the error it gave me, had something to do with the video driver. I have a 60" SXRD with HDMI and a VGA input but I haven't hooked the PC up to that yet, going to one of these days.

[thebob101]

Thanks for all of the advice, I saw a cord at Radio Shack for $25. I am going to try it this weekend and I will post results. Thanks again.

[Vinny]

$25? Fuck that... Monoprice dude or bust dude.
http://www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?c_id=102&cp_id=10231&cs_id=1023104&p_id=2404&seq=1&format=2&style=

[tehweezner]

^^ wow that site is a lot cheaper...

[thebob101]

I need a DVI with 24 pins, not 17 pins. Anyone know how to look that up at Monoprice. By the way, the prices are great.

[Vinny]

Hm... I don't see any 17 pin DVI to HDMI cables at Monoprice.

Why do you need 17 pins? Most GPUs support 24 pins or at least I thought so.:-k

[thebob101]

I need 24 pins. When I followed the link above, it looked like the DVI was 17 pins.

[Duo_Maxwell]

I need 24 pins. When I followed the link above, it looked like the DVI was 17 pins.

It's 18 pins, and no you don't need it. 24 pins is for a dual link cable configuration. There's two types of DVI cable, dual link (24 pins) and single link (18 pins). I'd get into the technical stuff, but it's all moot becuase your TV won't even be able to accept the resolution the dual link adds, and your graphics card likely isn't set to it anyways (2060 x 1540). At most you'll be running on a resolution of 1920 x 1080 on that TV, which a single link cable is capable of.

Just because the port has space for 24 pins doesn't mean you need a dual link cable. All you need is a single link DVI-D cable which is what those are, at least on the one end.