HDTV hookup questions

[Mayday408]

Hello all,

I'm a moderate computer user, but i'm building a new PC and I have some questions regarding hooking up my HDTV to it.

First, this is going to be a gaming rig, and I just want to be able to hook up my 720 32" sony HDTV to it when I want to watch shows/movies I downloaded on it. The mobo has 2 pci-e slots, 1 will be used for my Gaming video card. Is it possible to put a TV card in the other slot without it conflicting?

Second, will the TV video card having a HDTV slot improve the quality more then say it having a s-video with a HDTV dongle attached to it? I'm assuming it will, but rather make sure.

I'd really appreciate any replies I can get, so thank you in advance!

 

[leon2006]

I'm driving a 70 Inc HDTV with my PC.....I have ATI 650 PCI HDTV tuner on my PC.

1st Question:
Yes you can install a TV Tuner in your PC. It will not create a conflict

2nd Question: The answer is NO....
From my experience the HD-Tuner of my HDTV is better than the pc-base HD Tuner on my PC. I tried all available HD-TV tuner for PC(Hauppage, pinnacle, avermedia, & ati) in the market.

ATI-650 PCIE PC-base TV-Tuner is best to come close to the quality of HD-TV Tuner on my HD.

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

I agree with Leon, but I'm not sure the second question makes sense to me.

It looked to me like you're talking about doing DVI/HDMI/VGA out versus Svideo and/or a component dongle from a 7-8 pin connector.

If that's the case then the component connector would depend a bit on distance affecting quality. The PC connections IMO would be easier and less noisey, but generally they will be the saem underlying quality for what you're doing.
The major limitation of most HDTV dongles is that they only offer 720P and 1080i and no direct RGB component support, so the other connectors would offer you 1080P support (but your TV doesn't need it since it's 720P).

Hopefuly that covers the second possible answer to question 2, but couldn't really figure out what you were asking based on the wording.

 

[Mayday408]

TheGreatGrapeApe,

Thanks for the help, sorry I worded it poorly

I guess what my question was is, whats the best way to hook up my HDTV to my computer?

On my old one I have a DVI to HDMI cable, but I think the reception is pretty poor. What will give me the best connection possible? Is it a DVI to HDMI cable? I heard that they have a s-video > HDMI dongle cable... maybe I am mistaken.

I am sorry, english is my second language so if this still does not make sense.. please ask and I will try to clarify more.

 

[Nik_I]

i think your best option would be to pick up an ati radeon HD48x0 series card. it has great gaming performance and it can output full HD audio/video to a tv through HDMI, which is your best option for how to connect it. as leon said, it might be better to use your tv's HD tuner rather than a tv tuner card. unless of course you plan on recording tv directly to your pc.

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

Thanks for the help, sorry I worded it poorly

No problemo.

I guess what my question was is, whats the best way to hook up my HDTV to my computer?

On my old one I have a DVI to HDMI cable, but I think the reception is pretty poor. What will give me the best connection possible? Is it a DVI to HDMI cable? I heard that they have a s-video > HDMI dongle cable... maybe I am mistaken.

Well I haven't seen an S-video to HDMI connector, and technically is it's true S-video it wouldn't provide sufficient information to drive the HDMI on it's own it would need to go through a converted box of some kind. Also S-video is limited to 576i (although usually pushing 480i).

For your setup the DVI->HDMI should be the best, however it may look poor if it is not set correctly.
You need to make sure you know hat settings your TV expects coming in on the HDMI. IF your TV is 1366x768 and receives a different signal (say 1280x720, or 1280x1024 or 1024x768), although it will handle it, it will look slightly off, and especially text will be blurry because it will be interpolating the image to fit your screen.

Most LCD TVs are 1366x768, some are 1280x720, and then there may be other 'off resolutions'. Best thing is to find the user manual (even if you have to go online) and find out both what the native resolution is, and what the HDMI input can receive as an input, and also if there is a 'PC mode'.

If you set up the card and the TV correctly, a DVI->HDMI connection should give you as clear a picture as it being HDMI all the way, and will definitely give you a better picture than S-Video.

I think to give you better advice we would need to know what gaming card you have and the make & model of TV.

 

[djfiii]

I have a follow up question to this thread. I had a spare PC lying around that I recently decided to turn into an HTPC - not at all concerned with gaming, it just sits next to the entertainment center and is used for nothing else. It's about 5 years old - ASUS A7N266 mobo, onboard NVidia GeForce2 VGA out, 1.7GHz Athlon CPU, and various other things. I have a 50" Samsung Plasma that's effectively just a monitor for everything - no audio ever comes out of it. It takes video input from my Yamaha receiver, which itself takes the audio and video inputs from the digital cable box, dvd player, and xbox360.

The TV has a VGA input on it, so I'm running VGA from HTPC to TV, and HTPC audio directly to the receiver. My first test run yielded a bit of a blurry picture - not terrible, almost like an old VHS recording. These are 4.19GB rips of my DVD's (DVD5 instead of DVD9 - no compression, still original VOB files, etc.) Needless to say, this isn't the quality I was hoping for. I'm not sure what the resolution was set at, so it sounds like it's a possibility that that's my problem - I just left it at the default because the desktop looked very crisp and clear, as did the mediaportal software interface, so I assumed any movie playback would as well.

I guess my question is what would be the best graphics card for movie playback from PC to my TV? More importantly, do I even need a new one? The reading I've done indicates VGA output is effectively the same as Component, however the result is not nearly as crisp as playing a DVD from the regular DVD player with Component cables. Could it be that ripping to DVD5 format is enough loss of quality that I would notice like that? (I haven't tested playback on a full size DVD9 rip yet). If I were to purchase an AGP card with DVI or HDMI out, would that potentially yield better results (I'm limited to AGP or PCI, as my mobo doesn't support PCI-E). Eventually I'll build a new rig with the latest and greatest parts, but for now I'm trying to do the best with what I have, or can get at minimal expense.

Thanks!!