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  1. Member
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    Apr 2007
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    I am finishing building an HTPC based on MythTV and Linux. The HTPC will connect to a Panasonic 37" plasma screen which is SDTV/EDTV resolution capable (852 x 480 resolution, PAL, NTSC, 525i (480i), 625i (575i), 525p (480p), 750p (720p)). I'm using a Nvidia 7600GS video card for the output from the HTPC which is HDTV-ready so is very capable of outputting the required resolution for this screen.

    My question relates to which video connection to use from the card. My plasma has the capability to use VGA, component, composite or S-video input. the video card is capable of DVI, VGA, component and S-video. The overlapping technologies are S-video, component and VGA. Of these, will the quality of video display on the plasma screen improve enough (over VGA) to justify acquiring component cables and dongle for the video card or will it be enough to use the provided VGA output to get an acceptable EDTV resolution?
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  2. Member edDV's Avatar
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    Mar 2004
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    Originally Posted by rbm0307
    I am finishing building an HTPC based on MythTV and Linux. The HTPC will connect to a Panasonic 37" plasma screen which is SDTV/EDTV resolution capable (852 x 480 resolution, PAL, NTSC, 525i (480i), 625i (575i), 525p (480p), 750p (720p)). I'm using a Nvidia 7600GS video card for the output from the HTPC which is HDTV-ready so is very capable of outputting the required resolution for this screen.

    My question relates to which video connection to use from the card. My plasma has the capability to use VGA, component, composite or S-video input. the video card is capable of DVI, VGA, component and S-video. The overlapping technologies are S-video, component and VGA. Of these, will the quality of video display on the plasma screen improve enough (over VGA) to justify acquiring component cables and dongle for the video card or will it be enough to use the provided VGA output to get an acceptable EDTV resolution?
    Good question. I'll try to summarize the issues. Feel free to ask more.

    1. Composite should only be used for devices limited to that connection. If S-Video is available, use that over composite.

    2. Next up the tree is component analog. You can configure component analog for either 480i/29.97 (interlace) or 480p/59.94 (progressive). The latter is preferred for movies over a DVD player. The former may look better as a connection to cable tuners or standalone DVD players used to record interlace TV.

    3. VGA is always progressive and uses computer display resolutions (e.g. 640x480, 800x600, 1024x768, 1280x1024, etc.). Wide screen variations are also provided (e.g. 1280x720, 1280x768, 1360x768, 1366x768, etc.).

    There are pro/con issues with analog component vs. VGA and interlace vs. progressive. This is where it gets tough for computer connection to a TV.

    Your computer can output 480i or 480p over analog component from the display card. Display cards often don't well passing 480i from a tuner card to the output without first deinterlacing to a frame buffer. Those cards that do that "do the damage" at the beginning so then it becomes how best to pass the progressive image to the TV. The options are 480p analog or one of the "VESA" resolutions over VGA.

    Analog component 480p will be converted to digital and then overscanned to the display.

    VGA output will be rescaled to the display resolution of 720x480p.

    I would say try 480i, 480p over analog and something like 1024x768 over VGA and see which looks best to you.
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