PC connect to HDTV

[MikeyM2005]

Hey,

I just bought a Samsung LE32R74BDX LCD TV and also purchased a DVI to HDMI convertor and a rather expensive 5m HDMI cable, stupidly however did not do the right research before getting the cables and to my annoyance now know that you cant connect PCs to Samsung LCD TVs. Luckily the cable purchase was not a complete waste of money cos the PS3 will soon be arriving.

However back to my problem, I will now buy a 5m VGA cable to connect to the TV, but I have tried this before and when playing video at full screen at 1360 x 768 the picture is slight jerky at the top of the screen. I read something about this being because the frequency is 60hz over VGA rather than the 50hz needed for video.

Is there anything I can do about this?

One of the main reasons I bought the TV was to connect to my computer so I can use it for a media centre. Would any upgrades help? ie new graphics card? (Currently nVidia 5650 or 5750 128Mb)

Also my other question was will I be able to view HD video on the TV in HD over the VGA cable?

Cheers

 

[Bomag]

Using the custom resolution setting on nVidia control panel you can set most cards to output at 50Hz over VGA (my 7800GTX, 6600 and 6800GT all do). Solves the 60/50Hz problem.

However if I was you I would replace either suggestion with a nV 7600 card and the purevideo codec. The 7600 supports all the purevideo features, is fairly cheap is available passively cooled.

 

[ROfu]

If your going to use VGA, then you may as well use Component Video to connect, as these will be recognised by media center/graphics card as a proper HD connection and have no issues. (VGA is analog anyway so there should be almost no difference in quality to RGB components connections).
Out of curiosity what happens when you do connect your LCD to the Media center using the hdmi - dvi converter? do you get any signal at all?

Cheers
ROfu

 

[MikeyM2005]

Ok thanks,

So at the moment I have a VGA and DVI connection on the graphics card and i will have the same on the 7600, I have my normal LCD monitor connected via the VGA connection because it has no DVI, so was hoping to use the DVI for the TV, would a DVI to Component cable work? or would I want a DVI to VGA Adapter and then VGA to Component cable?

Currently I just get no signal on the TV, the computer/graphics card recognises the TV and tries to send the signal as 720p but its not having any of it and wont display a thing, very disappointing!

 

[Bomag]

Using component video will limit resolutions to 720p/1080i. If you want to have a 1360*768 desktop then use VGA. VGA-DVI converters are
fairly cheap £5-£10.

With my Hitachi HDTV setting a1360*768 resolution via DVI or VGA gives a much better picture than 720P over HDMI as the picture is not scaled.

 

[ROfu]

if you only have a free dvi connection left, then i guess using dvi-vga would be the best bet - adding the component ontop again would only degrade quality further (although maybe not very much - might worth trying)

If your using another lcd monitor as well as the tv, have you tried changing settings for the tv - like refresh rate and setting your own resolution.
Im guessing the GFX card you have doesnt have a component output dongle.

If you have a normal vga input to the lcd, then try a simple dvi-vga conversion and see what that gets you. Of note ive seen a lot of lcd tvs which although have a vga port always default thier resolution to 1024x768 and not use the actual display resolution or its ratio. If you run into this problem then even with a vga-component converter i think the resolution would still be wrong (not entirely sure though)

Your only real hope is to get the DVI - HDMI to work properly. If this cant happen then your options as far as i can see are limited to a very expensive conversion box, which might end up costing the same amount as your TV did.

The 3 options i think you have.
1: Hope the VGA displays the full resolution of your monitor (if so this is your best bet)
2: If the VGA doesnt recognise the correct resolution, youll need a new gfx card with a HD-component output (most of the newer Nvidia range have these but make sure you double check)
3: Insanely expensive conversion box (i only say expensive as on my quick checks i only found dvi-hdmi converters.. vga-dvi converters etc there were none allowing different DVI signals to be converted which i "think" is the issue)

There might be some folks who post on here which know a little more about the samsung TVs issue - you should spend a good while looking through these and other forums for any fixes first.

Cheers
ROfu