is dvi needed?

Permabanned
Joined
12 Sep 2005
Posts
3,303
Location
England
I'm so shocked at how hard it's being to get a good tft for gaming.

I've been told I need "hdcp over dvi" for future proof'ing my purchase.

Do I really? Or is someone pulling my leg?
 
DVI is a digital interface which means you can send a pure digital signal from graphics card to the screen. This avoids any conversions to analogue and so in theory can provide a sharper picture. In practice, modern VGA connections are of very high standard and it is hard to see any real difference in many cases. If you're buying a new screen, there's no need to not get DVI, and it will perhaps make life easier in the future since VGA is not as common on some GFX cards any more.

HDCP is something different. It's an encryption method used to protect high definition content. It's only applicable to digital interfaces (DVI and HDMI for example) and would ensure that the screen is certified to be able to show HDCP encrypted material. In the future, the idea is to have HDCP protected media (HD-DVD, Blue-Ray etc), then DVD drives which are HDCP certified. You will also need a HDCP certified GFX card, and finally a hDCP certified monitor. If you don't have all these components then you may not be able to view sources with this protection method. However, HDCP is quite a way off being widely used, and who knows what cunning ways there might be to get round it anyway :p Not many desktop monitors feature HDCP support over DVI though so far. The Dell 2007WFP and 2407WFP do, as does the new BenQ FP241W. I would not worry too much about HDCP at present myself, it will be a good few years before it's important it is thought.
 
Well you need to ask yourself if you plan to use HDCP media.

Do you plan to use your pc and monitor to view this stuff or will it be media you use and view in your lounge on a HDTV with a dedicated bluray/hddvd player.

If you won't use a pc for this and they don't end up selling games or programs on protected bluray or hddvd then it's a non issue for you. Seeing as games took a long while to appear on dvd I'd expect the same or longer for HD media and now with digital download purchasing becomming more accessible and common I don't think the average user needs to worry too much.

I think the end result is, those that will need it and make use of it already know if it is something they need.
 
CrazyMonkey said:
Remember a Good VGA is much better than a poor DVI.
The 22" Belinea monitor is excellent and has VGA.

a poor DVI? DVI is digital, there should be very little room for problems there.
 
iBot said:
So not really then?

Remember too mate that your graphics card's digital to analog converter needs gets more critical the better the monitor you get.. I switched my PC (ATI Radeon 9700) over from DVI to the VGA input of my Dell 2007WFP when I got my Mac Mini and could notice the text was less crisp immediately. Whether that is the converter on the graphics card or monitor I'm not sure, but the point is - even on fairly modern kit there can be quite a difference in quality.
 
Baddass said:
a poor DVI? DVI is digital, there should be very little room for problems there.

I believe he meant A poor monitor that only has DVI vs A good monitor that only has VGA
 
The latest about HDCP if you believe the rumours is that it won't be enabled on HD movies until 2010. This is due to the high numbers of supposed 'HD ready' TVs that have been sold in the states but don't have HDCP (presumably because they don't have HDMI), or so the story goes. Also Microsoft have just released the HD-DVD drive for the 360 without HDCP which suggests the arrival of HDCP is far from imminent.

Anyway, the original question was a TFT for gaming in which case HDCP is completely irrelevant since it's only for movies and not games. The only reason you are getting HDCP compliant video cards appearing is so they can play HDCP movies from blu-ray/HD-DVD drives (again probably not an issue till 2010).
 
Back
Top Bottom