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Confused with HD

Kaiju

Kaiju

Kaiju

Soldato
Joined
27 Jan 2005
Posts
3,655
Location
Expat in HK
I have a fairly old HDTV which supports 1080i and i'm looking to get a new GPU soon to replace my 7600GT.

A few questions though.

1.) Is DVI>HDMI that much better than VGA>VGA? For instance I run a HD quality movie on my PC, will the picture be worse with VGA/VGA as opposed to DVI>HDMI?

2.) Can I run DVI>HDMI on my old 7600GT? If I run DVI>HDMI through my 7600GT, is it likely there will be no sound/picture as the card isn't HDCP compliant?

4.) Are HDCP graphics cards able to transfer audio via DVI>HDMI? If so, is that the only unique selling point if there is no difference with VGA>VGA?

5.) As I see a few graphics cards with HDMI ports now, is HDMI>HDMI any better than DVI>HDMI? Does HDMI>HDMI mean sound is definitely transferred through to your HDTV?
 
DVI (Digital Visual Interface) will only show a picture, no sound. HDMI is good because it allows both to be transfered through the hdmi cable/interface. You might notice a slightly crisper picture on DVI over VGA, but I would say that depends more on the VGA ports on the graphics card (some are rubbish, some are great).

You can run a DVI->HDMI but the only reason I would think this becomes handy is if your TV doesn't have VGA or DVI. Hope I have answered all your questions.
 
if you get a card with a HDMI port, you need to connect a connector on the card to your motherboards sound header to pass-through the sound. I wouldn't buy a whole new card just to do that though, you could just plug your PC's sound card in to your TV/or amp - depending on what sound connectors it had would depend what cable/or adapter you would require.
 
Yeah, having a look only low end cards have the HDMI port at the moment and I want to be running games max'ed at 1080i á la GTX280.

I have an X-Fi card, so it shouldn't be too much hassle getting sound. My desktop speakers are probably better than my TV ones anyway.

It seems all this fuss over HD is for nothing. HD ready cards, pfft, just get a DVI to HDMI cable and you're set.
 
I have a 32" Sony Bravia KDL 32S-2010 and if I hook it up to either my PC or laptop via HDMI->HDMI, the picture quality looks ok, but not epic. If I do it DVI->VGA, it looks perfect! I simply can't get a half as good a picture via HDMI as I can via VGA, however hard I try.
Sound over HDMI is nice, though.

(PC: 3870, laptop 8400M)
 
I'm using my 4850, was 3870 before on an plasma 42". Using the dongle that comes with the gfx card dvi-hdmi I get a crsip clear pic and sound. No internal header connections, the XFI-Gamer doesn't get a look in. The sound is handled by the gfx card. There are different hdmi cables, I got the latest rev..
Hope that helps.
 
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