Using Apple's 23" HD Cinema Display on PCs?

rsilverman asks: "I recently bought the 23" Apple Cinema Display, which I am using on my TiBook, and I'm loving it! Now, I would like to also connect it to my Intel box running Win2k (perhaps ultimately using a digital video switch box). I thought this might be relatively simple -- I went out and bought an AGP video card with the same chip set as is in some Macs, the nVidia GeForce Ti, and it listed the monitor's highest resolution as supported. No go. Tried the Radeon 7500 -- also no go. The monitor backlight powers up, but no picture. Then I read some more, and judging from what I was able to find (and don't really understand), the monitor's resolution (1920x1200) is near the edge of what can be done using the DVI standard. Does anyone out there know more about this? Got it working?"

"Cards tend to support that resolution and higher only with analog signalling, not digital. I've seen claims that it can be supported using some kind of non-standard timing ('pushing data during the blanking interval'), which I assume is a driver issue. Then there's 'dual-link DVI' -- using two of the usual DVI data links in parallel (still over a single connector, just using more pins). The Apple specs do not mention whether the monitor is single- or dual-link. At the moment, my best bet appears to be the 3DLabs Wildcat VP or III cards (one of which supports dual-link). However, they're very expensive, and I'm still not sure it will work."

Comments

Delicious

[AtariDatacenter]

I'm probably not adding too much to the conversation, but I'll have to tell you, getting a computer to work on a HDTV monitor at high resolutions really is a nice luxury.

My Sun workstation in the office, has a 24" HDTV screen. It is a good 'ole CRT with an analog input. 1920x1200 resolution. Lots of real estate for opening up lots of windows. It really is a nice perk, so I don't blame you one bit for trying to get this to work!

Although, to be honest, I haven't done very much in the way of digital video playback on it, so I really don't know what I am (or am not) missing by an LCD screen with DVI. Maybe it is time I take that television screen home and seeing what a PC can do with it.

On a related note... anyone know how to hook up a mid-priced DVD player to an analog or DVI HDTV aspect ratio computer monitor? I'm wondering just how crisp it can be.

Re:Delicious

[adolf]

Forget plugging in a DVD player to a computer monitor.

Anything "mid-priced" will output some form of NTSC video, which is horrible in all incarnations. Even if you get -really lucky- and score a VGA-esque RGB output, you'll be ill-equipped to see "just how crisp it can be," because the DACs on your Sun's video hardware are significantly better than anything inside of a sanely-priced DVD player.

Better to pick up a DVD drive, and some good software. This is, after all, a computer monitor. Drive it with a computer. At 1920x1200.

You'll get, depending on hardware and software, some very fine scaling and framerate conversion and filtering. Things will be great, as good as it gets. If your Sun can't do it, a cheap PC with an appropriate DVD-supporting video card will still be cheaper than a super-high-res progressive scan DVD player.

Whereas, a DVD player will only drive the monitor at a couple of fixed frequencies and resolutions, which may or may not include overscan support, and thus show a chance of being incredibly poor-looking on a computer display - and that's only if you get the interfaces to talk to eachother at all.

That all said, if you're insistant, this box will do what you want with just about any analog signal you can come up with. And since noone seems to want to make an analog -> DVI converter, things get even more hairy. Something like this this adapter card along with this way-overkill video switcher might do it.

You don't want to ask what any of that stuff costs, though. There's reasons why the price isn't listed on the web page. (other stuff probably exists which does similar things with varying amounts of overkill, but Extron has a reputation for being the best. If you wanna see "just how crisp it can be" in such an arrangement, look no further.)

Re:nVidia gForce 4 Ti is working for me

[rsilverman]

How... puzzling. The very first card I tried was just that: an nVidia
GeForce Ti 4600. It didn't work at all -- the monitor powered up, blinked
a cursor once, then nothing at all during the PC's power-up sequence. I
fiddled with various BIOS settings, all to no avail. It would drive a
standard monitor off the VGA port, but no joy from the DVI port.

But, nVidia doesn't make their own cards, right? They sell the chips to
card makers. So perhaps it's some card difference -- exactly what brand
of card are you using?

Thanks, - Richard

ARE YOU HAPPY, PROF. FOOBAR104?

[Anonymous Coward]

Stare into the night
Sun is setting on your sys
Apple is dying