LCD Monitor + HD Receiver = HDTV cable viewing?

[rogerconnery]

Hey all, sorry if this has been answered (if so please direct me to the appropriate thread!) but I did a search and didn't really see anything on point...

I have a 24' inch monitor that runs 1920x1200 native resolution, but no real HDTV. I was just wondering if I forked over $150-200 for an HD receiver, connected that to my monitor and then to the HD cable set top box, will this basic connection work for me?

Thanks all...

[edDV]

Hey all, sorry if this has been answered (if so please direct me to the appropriate thread!) but I did a search and didn't really see anything on point...

I have a 24' inch monitor that runs 1920x1200 native resolution, but no real HDTV. I was just wondering if I forked over $150-200 for an HD receiver, connected that to my monitor and then to the HD cable set top box, will this basic connection work for me?

Thanks all...

The only posibilities are 720x480p* and/or 1280x720p out of the TV tuner.

Call the monitor company and ask if they will accept broadcast standard 16:9 1280x720p/59.94 fps over DVI. They may say yes, they probably will say no.

If they say yes, ask if the monitor can expand the smallish 1280x720 window to full screen.

It will not work with 1080i or 480i.


*720x480p will have aspect ratio problems since the pixels aren't square. 4:3 programs will be stretched wide and 16:9 programs will be horizontally squeezed on a square pixel display. You would need to readjust the monitor H and V size every time you changed from SD to HD broadcasts or between 4:3 and 16:9 SD broadcasts. This assumes the monitor will accept 480p/59.94.

[rogerconnery]

Thank you for the reply!

Quick question: why is it that 1080i won't work in this hypothetical configuration? 720p is the max I can get, even if the monitor's resolution exceeds that of 1080i?

*(If the monitor has component inputs, will this in any way affect the monitor to display 1080i?)

[edDV]

Thank you for the reply!

Quick question: why is it that 1080i won't work in this hypothetical configuration? 720p is the max I can get, even if the monitor's resolution exceeds that of 1080i?

A computer monitor is progressive only. It cannot accept an interlace input. It has no circuitry to deal with telecine or deinterlace. These circuits are usually found on the computer's graphics card.

An LCD-TV is different. It has tuners, deinterlacers, aspect ratio control, upscaling, closed captioning, and all the other elements that make a TV different from a computer monitor.

720p is the highest progressive broadcast TV resolution in common use. The only sources of 1080p currently are HD and BD DVD. The discs are native 1920x1080p/23.976fps. The player will repeat frames 3 then 2 to make a 1920x1080p/59.94 fps output in square pixel 16:9.

[rogerconnery]

Right ofcourse! I read somewhere that monitors are progressive only, and that would make sense re: 720p only. Thanks again, this really clarifies it all for me.

[jagabo]

I don't know about now, but CRT based computer monitors used to be able to handle interlaced video from a graphics card. Most couldn't sync as low as NTSC video but they could handle hi res interlace stuff.

Since the OP specified a "native resolution" of 1920x1200 it's probably an LCD though.

[rogerconnery]

I don't know about now, but CRT based computer monitors used to be able to handle interlaced video from a graphics card. Most couldn't sync as low as NTSC video but they could handle hi res interlace stuff.

Since the OP specified a "native resolution" of 1920x1200 it's probably an LCD though.

Yes, it is an LCD monitor. I use it primarily for xbox 360 gaming @ max resolution, but also wanted to watch some HDTV on it (w/o wanting to spend hundreds of extra dollars on a separate HDTV). Since space in my apartment is at a premium, I was wondering if I could simply buy an HD tuner and solve the problem.

In any event, I still think it's a pretty decent alternative, being that at 24 inches, I don't think I would be able to tell the difference between 720p and 1080i anyway. Unless, ofcourse, those 1080i channels (ie - CBS?) won't be able to be displayed for some reason, but I'm sure the Tuner and/or monitor will simply down convert the signal?

[edDV]

The normal way would be to run it off a display card in a computer. That is what it was made for. The computer can be expanded with a tuner to get off air DTV. The display card will handle MPeg2 decoding, deinterlace and resolution/aspect ratio scaling. The tuner will deal with signal acquisition and audio separation. If you want to record video, you are getting into the full HTPC concept.

If you are talking about a cable or dbs tuner, those are made to drive a TV, not a computer monitor.

For off air analog NTSC (due to be shut off in 2009) tuner boxes are available that output progressive VGA. See these.
http://www.aver.com/mpd/standalone.html
A box like these could be used to interface a cable or dbs tuner but not at high resolution.

[mz_]

I plan on doing a setup like this. I have a Dell 2407WFP, and plan on getting HDTV from the Cable Company (Brighthouse Networks/Florida). I was just going to hook up the DVR Cable Box to the monitor via the component connections.

Knowing that it would only do 720p max and look small on a 24" monitor, would it be better to get a DVICO FusionHDTVRT Gold TV Tuner Card and Hook the DVR Cable Box to that?

I'd also like to be able to Capture HD content, either by the card or through the Firewire port if it works. The monitor and my video card (Sapphire Radeon X1950PRO) are both HDCP ready if that matters.

So would this setup work, (Cable Box -> TV Tuner Card) better than just hooking the Cable Box to the monitor?