Not quite sure about this but I know someone here will know the answer. I got the above tv (R72 series) and I use it as a monitor for my pc. I also use it to watch movies on and I play them from my pc dvd rom. The thing is for the pc to display on the tv I have to drop the resolution to 1360 X 768 (I used to have it at max res on a 17" computer monitor) and I'm wondering if this kind of defeats the purpose of a HDTV. I realise I'm not going to get HD from a DVD source but I suppose the question is, would the quality be better from a stand alone player rather than a pc that's had the resolution bumped down in order to display windows on the screen. Also, anyone have any suggestion for a DVD that will give an idea of the true potential of a HD screen. eg "CD's" have "Super Audio CD's" and I was wondering if there was a DVD equivilant. I can't imagine there is but a well produced DVD title will do (Star Wars 3 opening scene looks pretty good). The store where I bought the TV has some nature disc produced by Samsung playing that looks spectacular but I can't see if it's a DVD or Blueray disc as I couldn't find the source. Any thoughts appreciated.
A progressive scan DVD player will only give you 480p. I'd go with an upconverting DVD player and try both 720p or 1080i outputs and see which is better on your display. The Oppo upconverters are pretty good. Play the Superbit version of The Fifth Element on an upconverter and you'll be impressed. If you really want a video source that will unlock the true potential of you HDTV then try HD-DVD or BluRay.
Thanks guys, I don't suppose there's a way to do this through the existing PC? I don't really want to go down the HD-DVD/BlueRay route until SONY etc have had their little cat fight.
Well I think it might be a split. Blu-ray gets its half of the market and the same for hd-dvd. So pick one. Also you could get a ps3. Or xb360. Than you can play games and have dvds in beast 1080 with a very afforable price tag. But yeah I don't even have an hd-tv. My dads cheap and won't buy one til they real cheap. LOL But my friend has one and his progressive scan dvd player looks pretty good.
You can upconvert your DVD playback on the PC to 720p or 1080i by using a combination of software and hardware - usually ffdshow and TheaterTek/Zoom Player plus a decent CPU and a video card with DVI out. Here's a very good walkthrough: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=719041
That's a lot of reading eatsuchi. I'll try to get around to it later. In the mean time it looks like microsoft have done something useful on: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/musicandvideo/hdvideo/contentshowcase.aspx where I can check HD using the pc. It's worth a look.
OK, I'm a bit confused. In the control panel I'm currently using a res of 1280x720. In one of the guides it says under 'Resize and aspect ratio', in the ffdshow tab, enter your new figure 1280x720. Is this not the same thing? It seems quite difficult to find a discription of what exactly fddshow does or is for, but there's a lot of info on the more detailed settings. Are you aware of any simple guide that explains what each of the settings do. Also is there such thing as a small progamme to show what the PC is currently outputting. Eg.At a TV showroom I saw a upscaling stand alone player that had a upscale on/off button. When you press it it will show on the screen what is being displayed. I'm just unsure if I can upscale the pic quality as other comments say the graphics card upscale automatically. I currently use windvd to view dvd's and wish I could get software similar to the on/off button. Thanks as always
I Downloaded FFDShow to try it out but it doesn't work. There were others on this site that mentioned the same problem. Does anyone have a link to FFDShow that they know works. As per eatsushi's suggestion I have a decent CPU (3.66ghz P4 HT)a radeon X300 with a dvi out and 256MB onboard, a HDTV with HDMI in and Intervideo 7 that I think does some sort of upscaling. Anyone know it actually deos upscale? Thanks
