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High Resolution DVI Support for Plasma Displays?
spongman asks: "I'm trying to find the best way to connect a computer to a 50" (or larger) plasma display. The display I'm currently looking at is the NEC 50MP2 because its native resolution (1366x768) is high enough to meet my needs and it can display a 16:9 image with square pixels without scaling, but I'm open to suggestions for similarly-capable displays.
I also want to use a DVI connection between the computer and the display to reduce interference and noise.
The problem I'm having is that I can't work out which video cards support this resolution (or something near it) over a DVI connection. The only card I've found that seems to support this is the PixelPerfect from Imagine Graphics in the UK, but it's based on somewhat old technology (Kyro2) and I'd like a few more choices if possible.
Does anyone have experience getting their video card connected to a plasma display over DVI at native resolution?"
I suppose which card would be good depends on what the purpose of this is -- specifically, are you going to need killer 3D performance out of this display, or is it going to be a home theatre PC sort of setup?
You might want to take a look at the Matrox cards if you don't need stunning 3d - my G450 supports a wide range of high resolutions, and it is available with DVI-out.
--saint
from the displays-of-insane-resolution dept.
...because its native resolution (1366x768) is high enough to meet my needs...
Huh? Insane?
A 50" CRT? I don't believe such a thing is even made, and if it were the weight would be monstrous, not to mention that it'd be huge not only diagonally, but depthwise, consuming a huge portion of the room.
Plasma screens, on the other hand, can be made 3.8" deep, and the power consumption (and hence heat dissipation) of plasma (& LCD) screens is dramatically lowered. Most LCDs and Plasma offer much better contrast than CRTs, and the only real critique of them is ghosting in some lower cost models, but that's mostly a complaint of yesteryear.
I had a similar problem when I originally got my SGI 1600sw flat panel LCD a few years back. It ran at 1600x1024 native, and to accomodate this unstandard (at the time) resolution, you were forced into using one of their "pre-approved" graphics cards. At the time they were fairly decent, but eventually they got old, without being able to upgrade, since the default connection was OpenLDI digital (not DVI), you had to buy an adapter (Usually out of stock and $600 retail) or get a new monitor.
If there are enough monitors made at 16:9 instead of 16:10 in time 16:9 resolutions will be standardized. So if you plan to use this monitor for a few years, I think eventually you wont have any graphics cards problems. But until then, I would say the GeForce cards are very accomodating to non standard resolutions. I cant say much for 16:9 but I know that all VisionTek GeFroce2+ cards and certainly 4+ cards support 16:10 resolutions. GeForce2 was one of the few vendors that also supported 16:10 when there were only a handful of monitors running at that resolution.
If you cant find anything that runs 16:9 and that monitor can rescale to 16:10 then I think a decent Geforce4 wont be much of a compromise. Plus, you should be able to hook up your DVD directly to it and still have it hooked up to your PC so you can still watch your movies at 16:9.
My next monitor is the SGI F220 which im ordering next week, and lucky me I can get a GeForce4 to render, now I just have to find out if its compatible with non-SGI systems. ^_^
Do a search for "powerstrip" on download.com. For certain sure, you can use an ATI 8500, or GeForce 4 anything.
(Lots of other cards will work, but these are the only ones I can personally attest to.)
I'm not sure about your specific application, but Matrox has always been pretty progressive with DVI support. I think they have at least one model of the G400 series with two DVI ports, and the new I think the new Parhelia card has three.
I use PowerStrip to control my video card. If you get a card with DVI out, this program should support it. It supports about any card under any O/S, too. In the Display Configuration, you should be able to configure custom resolutions. One of the presets is already 1360x768. A few more clicks should get you to 1366x768.
I'm the Devil the Windows users warned you about.
First, to answer your question:
:)
Any modern ATI or Nvidia card should work just fine. Plasma displays are very sensitive with regards to having their exact resolution displayed, so use a program like Powerstrip to make sure Windows starts up with the exact resolution and refresh rate your plasma monitor requires.
If you haven't bought a plasma display yet, then I recommend you think twice about getting it. There are some really low cost monitors out there that can interface pretty well with a PC. Take, for example, the JVC AV-48WP30, at around $1,700 you can have a 48" HDTV that supports DVI(*). People are using this TV with their PC's at 1280x720, or 1920x540. There are also new 42" (HLM427W, I believe) and 50" (HLM507W) Samsung HDTV's that support DVI and are based on badass DLP technology (I heard this set is particularly sharp when connected to a PC). These Samsung DLP's are MUCH cheaper than other comparable sets, something like $3,000-$4,000.
Note, however, that while the theoretical HDTV resolution is 1920x1080i, very, very few HDTV's can display a discernable pixel grid at this resolution. Still, the price difference between a modern rear-projection HDTV and a plasma monitor is significant (you can buy a decent used car with the money you save).
Here are some very helpful links, I used them extensively when I was shopping around for a new set:
AV Science Forum: great forum with lots of very knowledgeable people. Many of them are into using displays like plasmas/HDTV's with their PC's.
Home Theater Spot: similar to the above, different layout. Another great, helpful site.
(*) Regarding these DVI connectors - yes, these are the new DVI connections used to transfer encrypted data to prevent people from copying future HD broadcasts. It is often documented that you can't use this DVI interface with your computer's DVI out, but more often than not this is not true and it will work just fine. However, ask around on the above sites about your particular DVI TV before buying an expensive DVI cable.
Although my ATI 8500 should be able to drive my HDTV-ready monitor at 1920x1200 resolution, I've yet to be able to coax the X driver into delivering that resolution through the DVI interface.
... indeed, I suspect you could easilly coax that out of an ATI 8500 or ATI 7500 under XFree 4.2, and almost certainly if you use ATI's drivers.
However, using the Nvidia binary-only X 4.2 drivers I have no trouble driving the monitor in 1920x1280 24-bit color resolution with a GeForce4 Ti4600.
Such a setup should work fine for a relatively low-resolution plasma like the one you are considering, at 1366x768
If you're going to spend that kind of money on a plasma, though, I'd wait a couple of years, until they support true 1080i at least. 768 lines of resolution is analogous to 1024x768 resolution on a computer (yes, I know you get more horizontal pixels in a 16:9 format, my monitor is 16:10 so I'm intimately familiar with that), so keep in mind that you are buying an expensive product whose resolution will likely be disappointing to you in a couple or three years.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
The quality of plasma displays is low enough that you almost certainly won't be able to tell the difference. Just get one with a standard VGA input. If you need to run the VGA cable a long distance, Blackbox.com offers boxes that let you use standard VGA with long cables. If you really want DVI, get a DVI-to-VGA converter and put it next to the screen. Keep in mind that the signal eventually will be analog anyway.
there are a lot of cards out there that will do 1600x1200 or better via dvi.
i know for a fact there are geforce2mx cards that can push out 1920x1200. search around for samsung 240t users and you'll find plenty of hi-res (1920x1200) dvi cards.
however, unless you plan on keeping your computer pretty close to your display, i think your bigger problem will be the length limitations of dvi cabling: 3-5 meters.
Drfrank is right. I use powerstrip and its an excellent reccomendation for this question. I sont have any points right now so someone mod this up. Hope that mod gets screwed in metamod.
With power strip you can dial up any resolution that you want and create a profile for it. Take a look at the nice PNG screen shot and see for yourself.
A few months back I was setting up a Plasma screen for a client, connected to just a Geforce 4, the big problem I found immediatly was the connector! DVI is not just one plug!
:( What I had to do after talking to both an A/V suplier and Pioneer was use a DVI-I to VGA cable as no DVI-I -> DVI-D exists! Apparantly the quality loss is insignificant, but it just didnt feel right. :( Still it did look brilliant at 1024x resolution!
It turned out the Plasma screen (Pioneer I think) has a DVI-D connector and the GeForce (and every other video card I checked) has a DVI-I connector, they are not compatible!
From what I was told by various sources is that DVI-D is purely digital, where as DVI-I is part analogue, I never had time to find out more, but if anyone can clarify this and why it would be something to take into consideration.
Just found this info on DVI connectors: All About DVI
Hope this helps..
I'd sacrifice my ex-girlfriend to the monitor god to get one of those plasma displays.
Two birds with one stone.
/^[A-Z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Z0-9.-]+\.[A-Z]{2,4}$/i
My NOTEBOOK has higher resolution than that.
Has anyone else noticed that most recent movies are being released with an aspect ratio of 2.35 instead of 1.85? this means all those beautiful 16:9 TVs will have to letterbox the 2.35s if you don't want to streatch the picture out vertically.
I think that kind of sucks.
I don't know what you'll be paying for the SGI display, but since it hasn't exactly been the budget brand earlier I think the similar-spec Apple displays might be a cheaper alternative.
In short, Apple has a 1600x1024@22" display for $2499 and a 1920x1200@23" display for $3499.
Apple has a custom display connector for which you'll need a $149 adapter, but the proprietary format is quite useful: a single cable will carry power, DVI and USB to the display. This means that you can hide a noisy six fan Athlon beast in your closet (up to 15ft away with an extension) and only have one cable coming to desk, with your keyboard, mouse and speakers attached to the display. Neat!
Marko Karppinen
Actually, some semi-modern video cards like the Matrox G550 and older versions have a limitation of 1280x1024 for their DVI output. There's a story one step up that talks about a tweak utility which sounds like it might circumvent this, but with the normal drivers settings it is not possible to go higher. The GeForce 4 and possibly the ATI 8500 do not have that problem.
i want unscaled, square pixels: the native resolution of the display. all the modes you listed above are for the analog input, not relevant to me.
CRT is better quality than LCD, for sure...
But plasma?
I saw a plasma screen at LG the other day.... seen it for the good part of a year, every day.
It's the most stunning video quality I've EVER seen, anywhere. Crips, accurate, high-res, wicked contrast, you can see it from a mile away in the mall, insane viewing angle.
It costs about $30,000 though.
If I had to guess, I'd say that a plasma screen can probably be made to be superior to a CRT.
Not cheaply.
Projector.
Go get a high end LCD or DLP projector. Do they make them in HDTV resolutions yet?
I should have been a bit more specific with my question.
Firstly I want to use the DVI input on the display because I want to get the highest fidelity possible. I also want to be able to use the natvie resolution of the screen because I don't want the screen to have to scale the video image. The problem with using the DVI interface is that the DVI spec allows the screen to tell the video card which DVI resolutions it supports, and even though the screen may have a native resolution of 1366x768 (16:9) it may not advertise that mode to the card, and even if it does the driver or the card may not support that mode.
I know that most DVI-capable video cards will support video modes larger than that of the screen (1600x1200, for example), but as far as I know the selection is limited when the DVI interface is being used.
I know of the PowerStrip utility and its ability to create custom resolutions, but it doesn't necessarily mean that the display is capable of being driven at those resolutions.
I have a dell 2000FP LCD monitor that I'm using with an analog input right now. The image looks fine at 1600x1200 with my old matrox millenium II card.
I'm curious to see if anyone has gotten the 2000FP's DVI input to work with more modern 3D cards at 1600x1200 in Linux. In particular, I'd like to know which cards actually work at this resolution in DVI mode. Thanks!
/ \
\ / ASCII ribbon campaign for peace
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Some people, really.
Be careful with slight incompatibilities between DVI specs ...
As an example, I have 5 pieces of equipment:
1) Apple Cinema Display 22" (ADC connector)
2) PowerMac G4/466 (GeForce2 MX video board w/ADC)
3) PowerBook G4/800 (w/DVI-I output)
4) Sun Blade 1000 w/XVR-1000 video board (w/DVI-D output)
5) Sun 24" LCD (1920x1200 native; DVI-D & VGA in)
Now, ANY of the equipment can drive my Apple Cinema Display fine (I have the Apple DVI-to-ADC converter also to support the PBook & SunBlade).
The Sun display looks GREAT on the Sun Blade, but it's awful on the PowerBook. The PBook supports its native resolution at 1920x1200, but I get all sorts of interference on the screen. Bits of "static" all over the display. If I use the VGA connector, it looks fine.
And it's not my display or PBook, because I've swapped both with other people @ my office and we all have this problem.
GRR... anyone know what the F___ is going on?
Why would I get that static? Now, an interesting point, the Sun docs for the 24" say that it only supports DVI-D and *NOT* DVI-I. The PBook is DVI-I. I thought that using a DVI-D cable with a machine with DVI-I output would act just like DVI-I (just ignoring the analog pins)?
The cable I'm using doesn't have the 4 analog pins around the "crosshair" so to speak.
Anyone have this LCD? Has anyone seen this behavior before?!?!
--NBVB