HDMI Output

HDMI is DVI + sound.

are you going to be using this cards output for sound also?

and since you are only running 720p(and not 1080p) can't you just use the component output of the card?

The LCD DOESN'T have DVI.

Only a HDMI input. I want it to run at 720p to get a better picture quality with movies etc.

I'm using one of the DVI to HDMI "things" as you call it and you can't tell any difference between plain DVI and the converter cable. And my picky TV worked fine with it, maybe you got a bad cable, or didn't set it to 720P before you tried it? I'm assuming you tried it, right? Or are you just dismissing it out of hand?

and HDMI is DVI+Audio why a http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168... cable (hdmi one side, dvi the other side) will work. you just won't get sound.

if you don't need to do sound then any graphics card that does digital dvi (DVI-D or DVI-I) will work.

and there is no conversion. the pins are the same, they are just mapped differently.

and you will most likely be unable to tell the difference at 720p between a component vs hdmi/dvi source. very very very slim chance.

Yeh I did try it at first, it comes out as a pretty bad picture.

Although that may just be down to me doing it on a 1650xt. If it will work with the newer ones in the HD format, that would be awesome.

My best friend's machine has a Radeon 9250 in it and he has it hooked to a Viewsonic 37" lcd tv with a DVI to HDMI cable - runs 720p perfectly - on an athlon xp 2400 machine.

Pretty bad as in pixels not aligning, like setting your pc on a resolution NOT native to an lcd panel?
I had that problem.
On default, the gfx card was outputting 1920x1080 but the TV adjusted the format and enlarged the picture by a small amount.
It was solved by changing some sort of overscan setting on my TV, with options -2, -1, off and "PC(!) input mode".
Clear picture, 1080p with just a simple DVI to HDMI cable.

I had simply set it with catalyst.

Ill probably buy a well packaged 8400gs soon too see if it works. Expanding my computer into being v. good at sound and movies, need that card and a decent soundcard  

If you need to deliver sound over HDMI, you need to go with a card that supports that. The ATi HD cards do natively. Some other HDMI cards do via a connection to your audio output - which means that the sound leaves the HDCP domain.

If you need to boot with this LCD, and you do use a DVI-D connector, then you may find that you don't see anything during certain segments of the boot cycle. That's because the boot cycle typically jumps the screen res around between VGA, SVGA and your target resolution (1280 x 720), and your LCD may not support one or more of those resolutions.

I've used both an X1800 XL (DVI-D and also DVI-A/VGA) and an HD2600 XT (DVI-A/VGA and HDMI) connecting to a Sony HDTV and a TVone scaler with no problems, though the 1800 would have blank periods during bootup with the DVI-D connection.

The ATi card DVI-D connections will support 720p (1280 x 720 @ 60 Hz) res with absolutely no problems. Heck, even my ATi 9800 pro mobile supports 1080p. And when I say "support", I mean that they generate a screen image at that precise resolution, so your LCD won't have to do any scaling.

(edited because I typed a lot slower than other people