Recently in HDTV Category

"Can I connect a computer to a 46" HDTV and use split screen software to make it like four screens / monitors in one? I have a PC with XP, and a Mac with OS X Leopard 10.5. However if the solution requires a different OS, I can get a new system."

There are a number of ways to achieve displaying multiple screens on the same physical screen. If you were to run 3 additional operating systems in virtual machines on Windows, you would effectively get 4 unique screen displays. On a Mac running something like VMWare or Parallels you could increase the number of screens. While the technology to do this is certainly possible, you're going to run into some limitations beyond the operating system that may be frustrating for the result you attempt to achieve.

"With the economic down turn I am interested in free online TV. I have an HP Pavilion dv6700 (with an hdmi port) using Windows Vista. I also received a remote control with my laptop but am currently trying to find it. I have a 42" HDTV that I would like to connect to my computer. I also use the Harmony One all- in-one remote control by Logitec."

My questions are:

1. Can I do this?
2. Can I get HD quality TV over the internet?
3. Will picture quality suffer from moving from my laptop to a larger 42" HDTV screen size?
4. What is the minimum broadband speed needed and what is optimal speed?
5. Can use the remote I have?
6. Can you make a favorites list with the equipment I have or do I need a software program for managing the channels and movie downloads?

For the most part PC video playback either works or it doesn't. Every once in awhile, software makers add a few features that make it worth upgrading to the latest version. PowerDVD 9 from Cyberlink is one of these occasions. If you've been having trouble playing back Blu-ray or AVCHD movies on your system, consider PowerDVD 9 Ultra and Deluxe a dramatic improvement. The software is getting better at rendering complex high definition video on less powerful hardware, providing a better experience for HD video. This doesn't mean your PC from 2001 will suddenly be able to play HD with ease, but PowerDVD seems less reliant on optimal hardware specs with this version. HD playback isn't the only reason you may want to think about an upgrade.

How can I play a Blu-ray DVD on my Windows computer? I know I need a new DVD drive, but what else do I need?"

To play a Blu-ray movie on your computer, there are several things you will need in addition to having a Blu-ray drive. Blu-ray requires fairly robust hardware for smooth playback, so you might need to upgrade some components in your computer. Blu-ray also requires software with the right codecs for playing Blu-ray disks. And if you are connecting an external monitor to your computer, your video card needs to be HDCP compliant in order for Blu-ray playback to work.

Software for Blu-ray playback

Software for playing Blu-ray is the easy part. Cyberlink PowerDVD Ultra plays Blu-ray media. It has the bonus of also playing AVCHD camcorder files.

"I have an Dell Inspiron 530s. I want to hook it up to my HDTV, and keep it hooked to my PC all the time, but it only has one VGA port. Is it worth it to buy a video card with DVI port, when I am not planning to watch movies from my PC. How big is the difference on video quality on HDTV with the VGA port only?"

There is no right answer to this question. In some instances, you will absolutely want to upgrade your computer's video card before connecting to your HDTV. In some cases, it won't matter. There are a few things to consider to help identify which option is right for you.

HDTV with VGA Input

If your HDTV has a VGA input coupled with RCA connectors for audio, you probably don't need to upgrade your video card. Westinghouse, Samsung, and a few other brands include a VGA connection on some HDTV models. This can be an ideal scenario when you simply want to use your HDTV as a monitor for your PC.

HDTV with DVI Input

If your HDTV has DVI input paired with RCA connectors for audio, you could use a VGA to DVI adapter from your computer and get a reasonably good signal on the HDTV screen. I don't recommend this method because you get a much cleaner signal when you're not putting a converter in the mix, but it should work.

HDTV with HDMI Input

If your HDTV has no VGA connectors and no DVI connectors, but does have HDMI connections for input, my best suggestion would be to purchase a video card for your computer with HDMI output. With an HDMI card, you can connect both audio and video to your HDTV with a single cable and typically get your video card to automatically detect the HDTV's native resolution, eliminating some of the common frustrations in connecting a PC to an HDTV.

In the specific case of your Dell 530s, one advantage of upgrading your video card to either a DVI or HDMI card is that the card will typically come with it's own dedicated memory for graphics processing. This frees up some of your computer's memory for handling other computing tasks, which may dramatically improve the overall performance of your PC.

"I have a computer with an Nvidia GeForce 7600GT video card. It has two DVI connections. I have a Maxent HDTV that also has a DVI in connection. To use the Maxent as my monitor I plugged the DVI cable into my video card and then into the back of the TV. I change the input to DVI and all I get is a blue screen that says "no signal input". What could I be missing?"

When you connect your PC to your HDTV, there may be configuration changes required in the settings for your video card. Typically the "no signal input" message means one of three common things.

Troubleshooting No Input Signal

1) The first thing to verify is that your video card is actually sending any signal to the HDTV. If you have another display connected to the other DVI port on your video card, you may need to enable to the second DVI conection in the video control panel. It generally works better to set the DVI connection to your HDTV as a separate display rather than extending your desktop.

2) If you are sure that there is a video signal going to your HDTV, the second step is to verify the video card is set to the proper screen resolution for the HDTV. In some cases, this may require turning on some advanced settings. If the HDTV is a 720p model, it will typically either need a resolution of 1368x768 or 1280x720. This varies from brand to brand. If the HDTV is 1080p, typically the DVI in will always be 1920x1080.

3) The third possibility is your computer may require a reboot before the HDTV will see it. When the resolution of your video card gets changed, a reboot is sometimes necessary before the HDTV will recognize the new resolution being sent over the DVI cable.

"My computer only has a VGA connection for video, is there anything I can use to go from VGA to HDMI for my HDTV?"

I'd typically suggesting purchasing a video card with DVI-out, rather than using your current VGA card, in part because the new video card will very likely also have additional video RAM, as well as being able to support native HD resolutions, but if you really need a VGA to HDMI adapter, such components do exist. My favorite source for HDMI cables and other cabling needs, Monoprice, is a good place to get what you are looking for.

Monoprice sells a VGA+RCA to HDMI solution that allows you to take both the video from your VGA connection and your sound card output, passing them through a converter box and outputting HDMI on the other side for about $40. I haven't personally used this device, but similar devices have been known to end up with audio and video slightly out of sync, so it should work well for displaying your computer screen, but might not be ideal for playing video from your PC.

"I have read your guide on how to use an HDTV as a computer monitor and found it to be very informative. There is however one detail I am unsure of. This is Sound. If I were to plug my PC video card to my HDTV via a DVI/HDMI cable I would get pure digital visual but no audio correct? But if I were to plug it in via HDMI/HDMI from video card to HDTV would I get audio? Or do i have to buy a sound card with HDMI out to get surround sound?"

There are a several different ways to get audio passed from your PC to your HDTV. Depending on what hardware you have available, you may be limited to stereo audio, with a few cases where you can also get surround sound.

Stereo audio from PC

Stereo audio is going to be the most common scenario, because there still aren't many source video files you'll find online with multi-channel audio. Many HDTVs include one HDMI connection that also has stereo audio in via RCA connections, which would simply require a mini-plug out of your computer to the RCA connections on the TV, in addition to the cable for video.

Surround sound audio from PC to HDTV

If you have an HDMI video card that also includes audio support, you would get audio passed to the HD screen similar to what's available from any other video device. This is considerably more expensive than merely working with what's already in your system, but gives you something closer to a "real" home theater experience.

In most other cases, you'd need to pass audio from your PC to a home theater receiver with support for surround sound, while passing the video separately from the video card. You can find home theater receivers for under $200 that will give you acceptable surround sound specifically for this purpose, which is still cheaper than overhauling your computer to support audio over HDMI.

Both Nvidia and ATI have enabled hardware acceleration in their dedicated video cards to help deliver a better high definition viewing experience for both video files and playback of Blu-ray disks. At one point, Cyberlink PowerDVD was the only video player that fully supported hardware acceleration in their software. Nero was showing off a working demo of an upate to Nero 8 Ultra Edition taking full advantage of hardware acceleration while playing back both Blu-ray disks and HD files. You'll have to click through on the image above and view the large sized image on Flickr to actually see the stats, but this brings CPU usage for HD playback under 20%, which is a dramatic performance boost over what often spiked in the range of 80% during some high definition video. Of course you need a dedicated Nvidia or ATI card to take advantage of this new feature when it becomes available, but you really can't play HD without one, unless you buy a new computer using the AMD 7 Series chipset.

If you don't currently have Nero 8, you can qualify for upgrade pricing from previous versions.

The home theater PC market has been rather dull for several years. Sure you can get a sound card with 7.1 surround sound, but they've generally been noisier than I'd want in my own home theater. You can purchase video cards that output to an HDTV and support HDCP, but the experience hasn't been on par with using home theater components. At Computex 2008, AMD is showing off a couple of new boards from MSI that change the game in important fundamental ways.

First up AMD's 780 chipset supports Blu-ray and other HD video playback through integrated video on the motherboard. Nobody else can currently do this - Intel drops frames. Couple this with the MSI boards integrated component and HDMI out and you've got ease of use in getting the video portion of your PC signal easily to your television, without the nonsense of converting DVI to HDMI. You can of course still add a separate video card, but for normal home theater use it would not be necessary.

The second key thing MSI and AMD have done is create something that grows with your audio needs. 2.1 surround (pre-amp) is included on the sound card with either analog outputs or digital. You can grow that to either 5.1 or 7.1 using an add-on card that easily extends your audio channels (That's the board in the front of the picture). The board seated on the motherboard provides amplified 5.1 surround. Audio uses a D2Audio chip on the motherboard to prevent extraneous noise.

A final component of this system is an ultra-quiet cooling system (pictured below). You're more likely to hear noise from your Blu-ray drive than you are from the fans keeping this entire thing cool. Best of all, I have it on good authority from a source at MSI that all this will be on the market by June 15, 2008 and you should be able to build a system (minus Blu-ray player) for under $1000.

"I want to connect my Blu-ray player (PS3) to my monitor. The monitor only has a VGA input. What would I need to convert the HDMI out on my PS3 to a VGA connection?"

One of the key challenges in converting HDMI to VGA is maintaining support for HDCP, which creates a protected signal path from Blu-ray players to a monitor as a means of preventing copying. There are a number of converters that will connect an HDMI cable to a VGA port, but anytime HDCP is present, instead of rendering the video signal, you get a black screen on the monitor. To avoid the black screen, you need a converter that includes support for HDCP.

"When you copy HD video from a camcorder to a DVD, do you have to playback on a HD-DVD player or will it play back on a standard DVD player?"

It really depends on the format you choose for your DVD whether the DVD you burn will play in a standard DVD player, or whether you need an HD-DVD player in order to watch your DVD creation. If you have an HD-DVD player, the method I describe for burning HD-DVDs on standard DVD media will result in DVDs that only play in HD-DVD drives. Your other option is to output your HD content as a standard definition video during the authoring process. Here's how this works:

• Import your HD video into your favorite video authoring program.
• Make any edits to the video, adding effects, transitions, titles, and anything else you want to include in the movie.
• Save the movie as a standard definition 720x480 file, either in MPEG-2 format or in the case of something like Windows Vista's Movie Maker, you'd need to save the file as a WMV.
• You then use the file you just saved in your DVD project

Keep in mind this method does not result in high definition video on DVD. You are saving your HD video as standard definition video and authoring a DVD that will play on any set top DVD player.

"I have an HDTV and want to watch more movies in HD. Blockbuster says it rents high definition Bluray movies. My question is, can I play a Bluray disk in my DVD player and watch it on my HDTV?"

Unless your current DVD player is a Blu-ray player, it won't play Blu-ray discs. Blu-ray discs, while similar in appearance to standard DVDs, require a special blue laser to play the contents of the disc. Unfortunately this is somewhat complicated because there are several versions of Blu-ray discs and not all Blu-ray players can play all Blu-ray discs. If you're planning to buy a Blu-ray player in the near future, the PlayStation 3 game console is the only safe choice - it's currently the one Blu-ray player on the market that's software upgradeable to support any future changes to the format.

It's also worth pointing out here that your current DVD player will not play HD-DVDs either. You would need an HD-DVD player. Also, except for a couple of overpriced units that play both, you'd need a separate HD-DVD player for HD-DVDs and Blu-ray player for Blu-ray discs.

More on HD-DVD and Blu-ray.

How can I connect my PC to my HDTV? I know it's possible to connect my PC to an HD screen, but I'm not sure what hardware I need to do to make it work.

I've covered a couple of variations on this in the past, talking about using an HDTV as a PC monitor and which connection you need to go from a PC to HDTV, but this time, I'm including a video to walk through the process. For most HDTV screens purchased in the last 2-3 years, you need to make a connection from a DVI out on your PC to an HDMI in on your HDTV. If you currently use onboard video on your PC (as in you didn't buy the more expensive video card option when you bought the computer) there's a strong possibility that you'll need a new video card. For cabling, choose between either a cable with DVI on one end and HDMI on the other, or an HDMI cable coupled with a DVI-to-HDMI adapter. Either way, read this article on how to not overpay for HDMI cables.

"A friend of mine suggested I could use my HDTV as a monitor for my Mac. How can I connect my Mac to my HDTV to watch movies and browse my iTunes library from the couch?"

Connecting your Mac to your HDTV is surprisingly simple. All you need is the right cable and you're most of the way there. All recent Mac hardware (with the exception of iMacs) include support for connecting a monitor via DVI. HDTV screens occasionally offer DVI as a connection option, but more typically rely on HDMI for making a digital connection to set top boxes, game consoles, and other hardware like your Mac. The big decision you need make is whether to get a cable that already has one HDMI end and one DVI end, or whether you plan to purchase an HDMI cable and HDMI-to-DVI adapter.

"I'm finally making the leap to HDTV and I'm confused by all the options. One that really confuses me is the use of terms like HDTV and HDTV Ready. Are these the same thing? Or can you tell me what's the difference between HDTV and HDTV Ready?"

HDTV and HDTV Ready are definitely not the same thing. And to make things more confusing, they aren't used consistently in marketing speak.

Generally, HDTV Ready means that your screen supports high definition playback at 1080i, 720p, 1080p, or possibly all three. HDTV Ready also means the screen doesn't have a built-in HDTV tuner, so you would need additional hardware to tune in HDTV signals from off the air or via cable and satellite. If your primary source of HDTV content is cable or satellite, this is a minor detail because the HD set top boxes for service are the necessary tuner.

HDTV means the screen contains a built-in ATSC tuner capable of decoding an HDTV signal of 720p, 1080i, or 1080p without the need for any additional hardware other than an antenna. The big variation here is that the screen will likely work with some or all of the three common formats.

The real one to watch out for is EDTV, which stands for Enhanced Definition TV. These screens are neither HDTV nor HDTV Ready. EDTV is limited to 480p, which is the standard resolution of most Hollywood DVD releases. This will certainly look better than what's playing on the standard definition broadcast of your local ABC, NBC, or FOX affiliates, but is not high definition television.

"How can I calibrate my HDTV to make my movies look great?"

I'm frequently asked about my favorite tools for calibrating HDTV screens. There are a bunch of solid choices, but many of them are expensive. Brandon Wirtz, an expert on video quality, recently put together a set of still images perfect for calibrating everything from 1080p screens down to your standard CRT. Best of all, Brandon is making them available free for personal use.

How to make an HD-DVD using standard 4.7GB DVD media or 8.5GB dual layer disks.

After shooting numerous hours of high definition video footage, I've been itching for a way to create some HD-DVDs. There are no HD-DVD burners on the market at the moment. And media seems to be in scarce supply. Sure, I could shell out $700 for a Blu-ray burner, but then I'd need to spend another $600 for a player that conveniently connects to my television (like a PS3, for instance). At least I can use the Xbox 360 HD-DVD player with Windows Vista or my 360, and there's now an HP HD-DVD player in the wild as well. When I found out Pinnacle added support for HD-DVD burning to Pinnacle Studio Plus, I was thrilled. Better yet, they do it by burning to standard 4.7GB DVDs or to 8.5GB dual layer disks.

The HD-DVD burning feature is a $50 upgrade to the existing Pinnacle Studio Plus package and works well for authoring in either Windows XP or Windows Vista. The first time you go to the Make Movie menu and choose HD DVD from the Disc Type menu, Pinnacle opens a window asking you if you want to activate the feature. You can also add it to an existing copy of Pinnacle Studio Plus directly from Pinnacle's site.

How to Make an HD-DVD with Pinnacle Studio

Once you have the HD-DVD portion of Pinnacle Studio Plus activated, it's relatively easy to make an HD-DVD. Click the Make Movie button and choose the Disc tab. Select HD DVD from the Disk Type drop down and choose a Video Quality. Based on my testing, you want to stick with Best Quality, which gives you 23 minutes of movie time on a 4.7GB disk and 42 minutes on a 8.5GB disk. There is an option to maximize movie on the disk and anther one that dynamically adjusts based on how much footage you have, but if you want your video to look great on disk, stick with Best Quality and edit accordingly.

The Settings page is where you might need to make a few changes. It's here you can set a custom bit rate for your video content, convert the video to progressive scan content as the disk is authored and choose whether to burn to disk directly or create a file on your hard drive and then burn.

The only time you want to use progressive encoding is if your content is already progressive (like if your camera shoots in 720p rather than 1080i).

Based on the test DVDs I burned, I highly recommend choosing the Safe mode for Burn Options. I made several coasters and had to go back and re-render my project, which made the whole process of burning disks take several times longer.

Menus and HD-DVD Authoring in Pinnacle

In my tests of adding menus to HD-DVD projects, the final DVD would not play. In each test, the video launched to the menu screen and selecting a chapter caused the video to error out. This leads me to believe that the menuing in Pinnacle Studio Plus is a standard def only feature. This isn't a show stopper for me, but at some point it would be nice to have a working menu structure for HD-DVDs.

Some tips on HD-DVD Authoring with Pinnacle Studio:

• Pinnacle labels the disk the same name as your video project, so if you want a meaningful disk name, choose your project name accordingly.
• The software does not automatically adjust based on the type of disk you put in the drive. If you're using a dual layer disk, make sure you set the software to dual layer or you'll still only get 23 minutes of recording time when burning the project.
• Don't check the box to re-encode your content. The software will re-encode as necessary and it's almost never better to re-encode your files without reason.
• Know your format and playback options before authoring - in general, HDV cameras record interlaced content. You should master your disk with the interlacing intact under most circumstances.
• If you recorded your video at 59.94, you need to decimate the video to 29.97 with something like VirtualDub or Pinnacle won't recognize the video footage

While this isn't the perfect solution of having an HD-DVD burner and actual HD-DVD blank media, Pinnacle's $50 add-on for HD-DVD authoring is worth the investment. The disks play in the Xbox 360 HD-DVD player both connected to a PC and to an Xbox 360 console. They are also compatible with the Toshiba HD-DVD players. One especially nice feature is support for playback in Vista even without connecting to an HDCP compliant display, which makes for a more compelling story for those of us who don't have HDCP compliant monitors yet. You can acquire both Pinnacle Studio Plus and the HD-DVD add-on direct from Pinnacle.

Michael writes, "I have just bought a LCD TV and would like to connect my computer to it. The instruction book only mentions connecting the sound card. The TV has Scart, HDMI, and RGB inputs. Can you please advise which is best and what should I set my PC to."

If you have a digital connection available for connecting your HDTV and PC, that's almost always the best option. In this case, the HDMI connection on your television is likely the easiest way to connect your PC. Most PC video cards have a DVI connection available for video output. Every major electronics store sells cables with DVI to HDMI conversion, which gives you the video portion of your PC output. Depending on which model television you have, the audio portion of the output from your PC may also need to be digital, because many of the televisions assume you're passing both audio and video over the HDMI cable. Prices for DVI to HDMI cables vary depending on how long a run you need to connect your PC and HDTV.

As for what resolution you should set your PC to - the best answer is generally the highest resolution supported by your HDTV. with LCD screens this is frequently 1024x768, although occasionally you'll see screens that accurately conform to HD resolutions of 1280x720 or 1920x1080.

You can read more about this in my article on using an HDTV as a PC monitor.

It was almost a year ago when I did my Xbox 360 giveaway. Since that time, Xbox 360 consoles became less scarce and might be the best consumer buy this holiday season - but not because of the games. There's a whole lot of effort in the entertainment industry and in the consumer electronics marketplace to make it harder for people to use their digital media however they see fit. The Xbox 360 consoles of the current generation might be the last consumer set top devices we see that don't encumber our media consumption from a million different angles.

The Toshiba set top HD-DVD player offers HDMI output with HDCP content protection on the signal for delivering digital video to your screen. Using the HDMI output, you get full resolution video of either 1920x1080 or 1280x720, depending on what your television screen supports. It also has component outputs, but those won't display full HD resolution, instead forcing the picture to 480p. If you happen to have an HDTV with no HDMI in, you're stuck with a lower resolution picture. In general, this will become the norm as hardware ships with support for an Image Constraint Token which forces content to a maximum resolution of 960x540. The Xbox 360 currently either lacks this restriction or doesn't have any content with Image Constraint Token support turned on, as demonstrated by my recent tutorial on copying HD-DVD with an Xbox as the source.

The Xbox 360 is the exception in this case. Hampered devices are about to become the norm. Blu-ray players and the new Sony PlayStation 3 also have HDMI with HDCP content protection. Using component connections with either also hampers your experience. The Xbox continues to output the maximum resolution available without hampering the signal.

In general, this is good news if you want to maintain some level of access to your media. Granted, my method for capturing HD from the Xbox is neither affordable nor practical from a time standpoint, but I like knowing I can do it. I specifically wanted to compare some video from the Xbox and would not have been able to do so without this option. Xbox also makes streaming audio and video to your home theater easier with the new software Zune Player (no Zune hardware required) and while the experience isn't perfect, the two combined make it largely unnecessary to have a Media Center PC to enjoy watching movies from your computer in your home theater.

Before you write off the Xbox as just for kids or only for gamers, take a look at what may be the last device in the HD space with what we consider the analog hole in its unhampered format. There's no guarantee that future versions of Xbox 360 consoles will continue to allow this freedom, but in the meantime this seems to be the norm.

Henry asks, "Can you Watch HDTV on a Standard Definition TV?"

Standard definition television is typically 480i in places like the U.S. and Japan where NTSC video is standard and 576i in the parts of the world where PAL is the standard. HDTV resolutions are generally either 720p or 1080i (or 1080p for HD-DVD and Blu-Ray content) in all countries. I could break this down even further and get into the various differences between the evolutionary steps of standard definition television, but this breaks down quite simply as standard definition televisions cannot display the full resolution of HD video. SD screens simply can't provide HD-quality viewing. With a little help from an HDTV receiver, you can view HD content on an SD scren, but it will likely be hampered in one or more ways.

For a visual perspective on the differences between SD and HD see the image below. At this point, content deemed standard definition generally is defined as 720x480 in countries with the NTSC standard or 720x576 in countries relying on the PAL television standard. What's thought of as 720p content is 1280x720, with 1080i or 1080p content coming in at 1920x1080.

If you were to put 4 30-inch televisions side-by-side, each with one of the 4 resolutions, the picture below is a visualization of the amount of picture information each screen would display.

You can't tune in HDTV over-the-air broadcasts with a Standard Definition television, just like you can't force your standard definition screen to magically support anything higher than 480 lines of image data.

You can watch HDTV content on a standard television screen using an HDTV receiver connected to the screen. The receiver displays the image on the television at a compatible resolution, often framing the image with letterbox black bars on the top and bottom of the screen, or in some cases, you will also have pillar box black bars on the left and right of the video image as well.

The reason you get the black bars around the image is HDTV content is typically 16:9 aspect ratio, where as standard definition content is 4:3. The black bars represent the unused portion of the screen when displaying the video at it's intended resolution. If you watch Widescreen DVD movies on a standard definition screen, you've seen this many times already.

I've tested this scenario by connecting a Comcast HD receiver to a standard definition television. I know a number of the DirecTV receivers also support a compatibility mode for standard definition screens as well. While this is far from an ideal scenario, if you want to view something only available in HD, with an SD television, there are ways to make it work.

Jason writes, "I'm about to purchase a LCD HDTV(Toshiba 42WLT66)and want to connect to my PC with wired connections under my floor to stream movies/music/pictures etc. I would also like to connect to a second LCD TV/monitor and get rid of my normal monitor- is this viable?"

Depending on the specific screen you choose, using an HDTV as a monitor is not only viable - it often looks great. Many of the LCD HD screens have a native resolution of 1024x768, which is a common resolution for PC monitors. Depending on which video card your have on your PC and the actual native resolution of the HDTV screen, you can often get higher resolutions as well. Here are a few things to consider if you plan to go the route of connecting your HDTV directly to a PC:

Dual Monitor Support

Especially in the case mentioned here, where you plan to connect two HDTV screens to your PC, you need a video card with support for dual monitors. This is also useful in cases where you want to connect one HDTV and a traditional PC monitor, so you can either share the same screen data on both the monitor and on your HDTV. Make sure the connections on the video card are compatible with the connections on your HDTV screen. Ideally, you want DVI connections on both ends so you get a digital signal between the video card and the HDTV screen. The other thing to consider here is maximum resolution supported by the video card - most video cards will support standard HDTV resolutions of 1080x720 and 1920x1080, but it's always a good idea to check in advance.

Long Cable Runs

The limiting factor in the equation described here is cable length. You can easily run DVI cable for 50 feet or more, but it starts getting expensive fairly quickly. Expect to pay between $100-200 for a 50-foot DVI cable run with the price climbing as you add additional feet of cable.

In addition to running cable for the video portion of your signal, you also need to run audio from the PC to the HDTV screen. If possible using a digital audio run will yield better results over a long distance. If digital isn't an option, make sure to use well shielded audio cable to avoid picking up noise from any nearby electrical wiring along your run under the floor.

Comparison shopping for DVI cables yields wildly varying results in prices for cables that are generally the same.

I cover a few additional details about connecting HDTV screens to your PC in this article.

High Definition DVD is one of the most anticipated and over-hyped technology advancements in a long time. In one camp, you've got Sony with the promise of Blu-Ray DVD, offering a better image quality for movies and the never shipping PS3 as the gateway to putting Blu-Ray in every home on the planet. Camp number two is Toshiba and Microsoft proffering HD-DVD, again with improved image quality, already in the market with a limited supply of over-priced hardware and the announcement of an external drive for Xbox 360 owners. To Sony's credit, new Viao computers now support Blu-Ray, but how many people are buying new machines on the eve of Windows Vista (unless they're buying a Mac)? I could go on here to list 20 or more reasons why I think HD content rocks and how we're getting sold out by yet another format war, but Clint DeBoer over at Audioholics gave 10 solid reasons that sum it up in a neat little package.

To summarize:

1) Nobody Likes False Starts
2) Format Wars Don't Sell Players
3) HD DVD and Blu-ray are NOT Quantum Leaps in Technology
4) Studios are Conservative, Greedy and Unmotivated
5) Playstation3 Cannot Save the World
6) Those Who Ignore History…
7) People Want Technology that’s 15 Minutes Ahead of Its Time
8) Enthusiasts Are Getting Tired (and Smarter)
9) A Skeptical News Media Doesn’t Help
10) Broadband and IPTV to Compete?

The detailed versions where Clint backs up these statements is more meaningful than the hitlist itself. Be sure to read 10 Reasons Why High Definition DVD Formats Have Already Failed

A few of these are a leap of faith, because I don't think many of today's enthusiasts remember 8-track tapes and the battle cry of Betamax vs. VHS is one that's taken up simply to argue for the right to make copies, not as a point about the consumer getting ripped off in a stupid corporate battle over formats. Format wars, if they reach an agreeable solution before they go to market, can result in a better product for everyone, but in cases like Betamax, Sony's arrogance and over-pricing left us with an inferior product because the market opted for a cheaper good-enough solution like it always does.

So the question is, are you on the Blu-Ray band wagon? Are you buying HD-DVD? Would you rather skip it all together and get all your high definition content from a cable provider or from the Internet? Or is this one battle you plan to wait out to see who wins? Weigh in with your thoughts at Digital Media Thoughts.

Phillip writes, I just got a Panasonic TH-42PX500U Plasma TV that can be used as PC Monitor. How can I play games & stream music through the new Plasma? I currently have a Wireless Network set up with a Linksys Wireless-G Router. Any help greatly appreciated.

The entire Panasonic line of plasma screens will support 1024x768 resolution output from any computer. The simple solution is to connect the standard VGA output on your computer's video card to the VGA connector on the plasma screen, which will give you all the advantages of a massive screen with minimal hassle. Most electronics stores offer a variety of cable lengths depending on how close your screen and PC sit in proximity. If the computer video card has a DVI output connector, a number of options exist for cabling between DVI out on the PC and HDMI in on the back of the TV. However, it sounds like you're hoping for a solution that will connect your PC to the television remotely, which means you ultimately need a go-between to get your computer content tied into your home theater.

If you don't want to have the computer and plasma screen in the same room, the single best purchase you can make is an Xbox 360 console. For either $300 or $400 you get an interface optimized for navigating PC content connected over your home network for playback on an HD screen. In this scenario, you're connecting the Xbox to your home network either wired or wirelessly and using either Windows Media Connect or Windows Media Center Edition to manage music, movies and photos on screen. Even if you're not interested in ever purchasing an Xbox 360 game, the user experience for getting content from your computer to the Xbox is actively being improved by Microsoft and will become more seamless once Windows Vista finally ships.

The second option would be to purchase a third party media controller box. Linksys and D-Link both make models priced around $200, which integrate with your home theater and handle all the browsing of movies, music and photos across your home network. I personally don't like this experience as well as what Xbox 360 delivers, but it is cheaper and offers most of the same advantages.

A third and more complicated option is to get a second computer that's connected directly to the plasma screen via one of the methods above. Share your movies and music with this computer and use Windows XP as the control interface for playback. Without investing in some kind of media management software, you're going to be mousing around the interface instead of comfortably selecting content from an interface optimized for browsing via remote, but it will get the job done.

Download HDTVtoMPEG2

If you have a cable box with built in HDTV PVR, the FireWire connection on the back of the box may be your gateway to accessing the recorded files. The cable companies are typically required to make all ports on a cable box functional and there are a number of online projects around working with the PVR boxes over FireWire. In many cases, you will need an app to work with the HDTV transport stream files once you record a few shows. HDTVtoMPEG2 is that solution, with features for eliminating commercials or unwanted sections of a recording and the ability to convert HDTV transport stream files to a standard MPEG2 file playable in Windows video apps. If you want a more user friendly experience, a shareware app like VideoReDo may be a better option, but for basic HDTV transport stream edits, HDTVtoMPEG2 is up to the task. [Windows 2k/XP $0.00]

Gerald writes, "LCD HDTV, and monitor: What inputs would I need make sure the unit would have to run the input from the cable box digital tuner, and an input from the cable internet? Or maybe the correct question or setup would be to put a computer near the monitor and have a Internet connection into the computer, with a connection into the monitor? Costco has some great prices on the Sceptre brand with a 32, 37, and in March a 42 inch available. This way I could have a great system in the family room."

Adding an HDTV as a monitor is a fairly simple process, assuming the video card in your computer already has the correct outputs. It sounds like you want to take things a step further and integrate the PC more completely into your home theater experience. This is a perfect case for a media center application of some kind in addition to the basics of connecting the correct components to your system.

At CES 2006, the new "new thing" in TV land is 1080p screens as standard. Felix Torres of DigitalMediaThoughts.com takes an indepth look at a 37-inch Westinghouse screen and comes away reasonably impressed. I'm not entirely sold on the idea of LCD HDTV, because the black levels just aren't on par with the colors you get from plasma screens. Still the image quality blows away anything we've seen in the average living room prior to the new millennium. On the plus side, you do get a much more affordable HDTV screen with LCD and 1080p is one direction a large section of the industry is banking on.

From the article:
Last January, at the Annual Las Vegas Consumer Electronics show, a handful of companies announced and displayed a variety of High Definition displays running at the once-futuristic native resolution of 1080p. They were not the first to do so; super-premium niche displays had been available at extreme prices for years, and Sharp Electronics had been marketing a high-end 45" LCD display with that same native resolution for months. What made the new displays at CES notable was that they were intended to sell in volume at the same prices as the currently available 720p models of similar size.

In other words, these new models are intended to mainstream native 1080p displays; a pretty tall order at a time when even true 720p content is far from common and the content in native 1080p can be easily listed on a few sheets of paper. One of the displayed models in particular drew skeptical looks because of the listed specs, the pricing, and the source: Westinghouse Digital was promising to deliver by mid-2005 a 37" 1080p LCD display for under $2500, the same price-point of their previous 32" 720p offering.

Read the full article

Compare Prices on LCD HDTV screens

eHomeUpgrade tipped me off to this sweet little HDTV calibration tool. It's a standard sized USB keychain drive loaded with all the test signal patterns required to effectively calibrate almost any HDTV. You need HD component output or the equivalent using an optional SVGA to HDTV component video converter and a video card capable of 1280x720 or 1920x1080 output to make calibration work properly, but the package of Calibug and converter is considerably less than buying off-the-shelf calibration gear. If you've ever watched a poorly calibrated HDTV and then seen the difference after calibration, you know why this matters. The software in Calibug automatically runs when you plug it in to a USB port on your PC, meaning no installation is required. Configuration supports both 720p and 1080i resolutions. In addition to HDTV calibration, Calibug supports calibration for lower resolution monitors and televisions as well. It includes a handful of additional features like nostalgic test patterns from the early days of television. A Swiss Army Knife version is also available. This is the kind of gadget that makes both a functional tool and holiday gift for the geek who already owns everything.

More info on the CALIBUG HDTV

Mark asks, "I have seen a number of articles about the size of your viewing surface compared to the room size and how far away you will normally be sitting. What I haven't seen is anything regarding the height that the viewing surface should be. My wife and I have had 'discussions' regarding placement of our television. She has won the battle to keep it in a cabinet behind doors when not in use. But the cabinet is too tall (IMHO). Worse yet, I have her convinced that we should look into buying a flat panel LCD and she want to place it on the wall at the same height that you would place a picture. Fortunately she is somewhat vertically challenged and wouldn't place the picture as high as I would for viewing, but much higher than I would for viewing an LCD from a sitting position on the couch. What would be a reasonable height to place a 42 flat panel?"

If you plan to watch television standing up, placing the LCD screen at the same height you hang pictures is probably perfect. People typically hang pictures so the center of the picture is at eye level (unless they are trying to acheive some unique perspective variation). For normal viewing from the couch, this results in tilting your head back to look up at the screen.

Television screens are optimized for color and brightness to look best when viewing with the center of the screen at eye level. If you typically watch television from your sofa, this means you should position the screen with the center of the screen at eye level. In addition to best viewing conditions for the screen image, not craning your neck to look at the screen has important longterm health benefits. Now this doesn't mean you need to invest in surveyor's equipment to configure your screen exactly at eye level, but using your best guess of eye level compared to the center of the screen will result in better viewing than placing the screen above eye level.

I'm currently shopping for an HDTV. Several of the models I'm looking at have widely different Contrast Ratio numbers like 3000:1 and 800:1. Should I be concerned with contrast ratio in making my decision?

The short answer is, yes you should be very concerned with the contrast ratio of your HDTV screen. Contrast has a significant impact on how your picture looks. Coupled with brightness settings, it also plays into how easily you can make out onscreen details in a room with the lights on. In looking at a variety of HDTV screens the contrast ratio is all over the map, no matter how much you are paying for.

Those contrast numbers are the ratio between white colors and black colors on your screen. Using the two numbers you site above, in one case, the contrast ratio shows white being 3000 times brighter than black and in the other white is only 800 times brighter than black. In general lower contrast ratio numbers translate to coloration that may not match the video source as closely as a higher contrast output. Or simply put, bigger is better, in this case.

Brian writes, "I bought an LCD HDTV and the picture looks great on my local Comcast HD channels. I notice a lot of 'pixilation' What is that? Is that my TV, the feed, or the general current technology? I also bought a cheaper progressive scan DVD player. Why is the DVD quality so much worse then my cable feed? It looks OK, but not like the HD channels?"

There are a number of elements that might play into the issues you are facing, but without knowing specifics about the particular model of your TV, the way you are connecting all the devices, and the overall environment of your home theater setup, I'll need to make a few generalizations and then offer several potential solutions for you to try. There are a number of issues at work here, but they all boil down to differences in the quality of the video information for each content type.

Since you indicate the picture looks great on your Comcast HD channels, I'm going to assume the pixilated image you are experiencing with some channels is in reference to non-HD or standard definition channels. As you point out, your HD channels look significantly better than the alternatives. The biggest reason for a difference in picture quality is the difference in resolution between HD content and standard definition content. Most of the HD channels available through the cable and satellite providers broadcast 1080i content, which means the picture is made up of 1080 interlaced lines of image information. Standard definition television is 480i or 480 interlaced lines of vertical picture resolution.

Because standard definition contains less image information it will never look as good as HD content, but several factors can make it look better or worse. A few of the stations may be over-compressing their signal, which is fairly obvious when you see how much worse certain stations look on a plain old TV compared to other stations with crisp image quality. Stations sending a poor signal are going to deliver a poor picture just like any other garbage-in garbage-out method of operation. If all non-HD stations look bad on your screen, this is likely not the problem. One of the big factors in making standard definition look better on an HD screen is the amount of filtering built in to your particular TV. Some manufacturers go the extra mile and add special filters designed to improve the quality of the standard definition signal, specifically because most television stations are still broadcasting in standard definition.

The picture may also look better or worse depending on how well your screen scales the image from the standard 4:3 aspect ratio the more common 16:9 aspect ratio for HD content. Standard definition content is optimized for 4:3 which means the television is stretching the image to fit the HD screen. In general, stretching results in a distorted image, not a pixilated one, but you may be able to improve the image quality by turning off the image stretching feature on your TV and watching non-HD channels in their native aspect ratio.

When you connect your cable box to the television for HDTV reception, you need to use the component connectors in order to take advantage of the signal quality. There are mixed opinions about whether using the component connections to pass the standard definition signal actually makes it look worse. For some televisions people have found that using a component signal or S-Video cable improves the image quality for standard definition channels, although this is not true across the board. Another potential problem is line noise created by a cable signal that has been split several times before reaching your cable box. This is best avoided by running a clean line straight from the outside source to the back of the cable box. Attenuation do to lack of power for pushing the signal is also a potential side effect of splitting the signal. Asking the cable company to adjust the power of your signal often results in a massive improvement to the overall image quality of all channels.

The second problem you are experiencing with DVD images not looking as good as HD is again partially related to a difference in resolution. DVD video is 480p or 480 progressive lines of resolution where broadcast HD is typically 1080i. As more DVDs are released in HD, this problem will gradually go away. While you mention the DVD player is a progressive scan DVD player, you don't mention how the it connects to the HDTV. In order for you to take advantage of the progressive scan feature of the DVD player you need to connect the DVD player to the television using the component outputs rather than the S-Video or composite output. An additional possibility for improving your DVD image on the HDTV screen is to make sure the stretch feature of the screen isn't impacting the image quality of the DVD. For instance, if you are watching a full screen 4:3 DVD in the native 16:9 aspect ratio of the HDTV, you may experience some image distortion you wouldn't see when watching the DVD with the television's stretch feature turned off.

Just recently, I posted five HDTV shopping tips designed to help you find the perfect high definition television. Those suggestions will help in finding a screen that's right for your HDTV viewing needs, but without a decent sound system to go with it your HDTV experience will definitely seem lacking. After spending $1000 or more to get a great looking picture, you'd hope the cash outlay would be at an end. If you already have a 5.1 surround setup, you may be set. On the other hand, if you're audio is languishing in the Pro Logic era, some improvements may be required to get the full effect of your hefty screen investment. Several factors help you determine the best course of action when shopping for the right surround system for your high definition home theater.

Home theaters range in complexity from a combined high definition screen and home theater audio in the family room to entire rooms dedicated to creating a home theater experience. I'm going to focus on the first group because it more accurately represents my own situation. I'd love to have a room dedicated to home theater, but I don't have the option because the amount of space I have available is limited and I don't think the people we are renting from would appreciate a makeover of the house.

Filling the Room with Sound

The whole point of surround sound is to immerse the listener in the audio experience. If the speakers you choose are too small for the room your home theater is located in or if you purchase speakers too big for the room, the audio experience is ultimately lacking. There's a careful compromise between too much sound for the room and too much room for the sound. When your home theater space spills over into another room, as is the case with the living room and dining room in my house, things get even more complicated because it's necessary to account for the extra space in the room, even though we won't be using the entire space for the home theater. For a bigger room, make sure the speakers are capable of filling the room with sound.

Receiving All Your Components

Before you buy a home theater receiver, take inventory of how many components you will be connecting. Also determine how many connections will be required from the receiver to the back of the HDTV. If your home theater has a DVD player, a VCR, a CD player, a Media Center PC, and a cassette deck, a Sony Play Station and Game Cube, you need to be sure the home theater receiver you choose will accommodate all the connections for those devices, especially because five of those seven devices all need to display something on the screen for you to get anything out of the experience.

If you're doing surround sound on a budget, I still like the Onkyo TX-SR502 with 6.1 channel surround sound supporting Dolby Digital EX, DTS-ES, DTS 96/24, DTS Neo:6 and Dolby Pro Logic IIx. The subwoofer crossover is adjustable for optimizing bass response. It offers two component video inputs in addition to three S-video or RCA video in connections, which is enough for the scenario described above. CD and Tape audio only connections, as well as a digital audio in round out the input selection. The key area where this receiver is lacking is in upconversion from S-video to component output or RCA to S-video output, so the potential exists for needing three connections from your receiver to the back of the screen. Consider this a great starting point with plenty of alternatives for larger budgets.

Buy Your Subwoofer Separately

It's tempting to buy one of those all-in-one surround sound packages with front, center, and rear speakers bundled with a subwoofer. The result may be less than desirable because the speakers are almost never perfectly sized for the room you want to use them in. For large rooms, like the situation I describe with the living room area and dining room forming one massive room, bass can easily get lost if the subwoofer isn't appropriately sized to fit the room. Buy purchasing the subwoofer separate from other speakers you get exactly the subwoofer optimized for your listening area.

Matching Tones

While buying a subwoofer designed for your listening space is better than buying a speaker bundle it's still a good idea to have some brand loyalty in buying. Speakers from different manufacturers have slightly different tones to the way they reproduce sound, which can mean that a particular speaker (or speaker pair) will stick out slightly if it doesn't match with the others. Buying all your speakers from one manufacturer will generally prevent this although if you're willing to invest some careful listening, it may be possible to create a tonally balanced set of speakers across brands.

Demo on the Showroom Floor

It's almost impossible to get an accurate sound picture on the showroom floor that translates directly to your listening environment at home, but there are a few tricks that will help make sure the speakers are solid. First, make sure you know the return and exchange policy; if you really hate the speakers in your home setup you want the option of exchanging them for something better. Listen for subtleties of sound in the appropriate speakers; for talk programming make sure voices are clear in the center channel and that you can hear speech clearly. For a great surround test, the pod race in Episode I remains one of the greatest surround samples on DVD. As a matter of personal taste, I have no interest in music performances in surround, but if you enjoy a full-bodied music experience, bring a few CDs or DVD-A disc to the store and test the speakers for a dynamic range of music as well (in my case, I make sure the front channels deliver a truckload of performance with the vocalist in my face from the center channel).

Jim asks, Where did you come up with that crazy formula for viewing distance? I have a 60 inch TV and enjoy baseball and football at 8 feet from the screen. It's better than being there in person.

This question refers to the HDTV reference I made in my holiday wishlist.

There are a number of different formulas for calculating the appropriate distance to sit from a screen. I mixed the formula for standard def big screen viewing distance with the high definition viewing distance which is based on screen height rather than diagonal size of the screen. Recommendations often vary by manufacturer, screen type, and astrological sign. Ultimately how far you sit from the screen is a matter of personal preference, but 2.5xH (where H is the height of the screen in inches) is a good minimum distance to make sure you have enough room in the space you want to make your home theater.

From a variety of research sources, companies and experts consistently recommend viewing HD screens within a range of 2.5 screen heights to 3.3 screen heights from the viewing surface. If you plan to shop at the local electronics store, measure your viewing area ahead of time so you can ballpark the screen size you want to buy before you get there. You may think a mammoth 65" screen looks fabulous on the display floor, but fitting it between the windows in the family room or finding a room with enough viewing distance in a house built before 1970 might be a challenge.

According to Hitachi, you should sit 3.3 times the height of the screen for a "smooth, seamless picture." Their quick-and-dirty in store measurement is to double the diagonal for a rough estimate of distance. Here they contradict themselves a little, because their published distances and the distance of 2 times diagonal are distances that vary by more than 12 inches.

Hitachi Numbers vs. Two Times Diagonal

Richard Fisher of HDTV magazine offers a different take on what he calls Critical Viewing Distance. Fisher presents critical viewing distance as a range falling between 2.5 and 3.3 times the screen height. This falls directly in line with most other sources on the subject and leaves some room for personal preference to be a factor in the decision making process. The theory being anything closer than 2.5 times screen height makes digital artifacts and other imperfections in the image more apparent. Outside 3.3 times screen height, you might as well save some money and get an enhanced definition screen or standard definition big screen because you aren't taking advantage of the improved picture.

Based on these numbers, the critical viewing distance for the same Hitachi screen sizes listed in the above example break down as follows: