HDTV on LCD Computer Monitor?

[jasonsinclair]

Hey all,
I've been reading through a lot of topics here and it seems a lot of people are hooking up their computers to HDTV monitors/TV's. I have a different approach, and I apologize if this has been discussed before. I have an HDTV box from my cable company and I want to hook up the signal (HDMI or DVI) to an LCD monitor (haven't purchased it yet). I was looking at 19"-24" widescreens. Some say HD compatible but their specs aren't much different. What do I need to look for in an LCD monitor that will support a 1080i/720p signal from either an hdtv tuner or ota signal? Does it have to be a specific input? Resolution? Contrast? Confused a bit... I have an older (about 3-4 years) 19" envision LCD monitor and I hooked the DVI from the tuner to the monitor to see what would happen, and I got "Input not Supported" on the monitor. Any advice or direction would be appreciated!

Thanks,
Jason
jsinclair@vmind.com

[edDV]

Computer monitors don't have the "right stuff" to accept a 1080i or 480i input. Add the right stuff and you have a LCD-TV. 720p or 480p might be accepted depending on the monitor. Don't assume. Call the manufacturer.

Righ Stuff includes
- Inverse telecine and/or deinterlacing
- Resolution and aspect ratio detection and adaptation.
- Overscan so you don't see the cc or other vertical interval pulses.
- TV color balance
- TV gamma (emphasis on dark gray to black)*
- Additional video inputs (e.g. composite, S-Video, component)
- A tuner (ATSC and /or NTSC)
- Support for closed captions
- Suport for HDCP (needed to play HD/BD DVD)**
- A remote control
- etc.

* Computer monitors usually emphasize the bright end of the luminance scale (intended for office lighting) with coarse contrast and little attention to making a good black. Cheaper LCD panels can be used.

** May also be needed to receive flagged broadcasts if the "Broadcast Flag" passes in Congress.

Note that most of these features are the job of the display and tuner cards in a HTPC. This even extends to altering color balance and gamma sent to the computer monitor from the overlay area.

[jasonsinclair]

Thanks for the info..what my best solution would be is to purchase an HDTV tuner for a PC that supports QAM and plug my cable into that and let the computer's video card do the work, right?

[edDV]

Thanks for the info..what my best solution would be is to purchase an HDTV tuner for a PC that supports QAM and plug my cable into that and let the computer's video card do the work, right?

That will get you the local stations but cable "digital" SD/HD channels will most likely be blocked to a computer QAM tuner*.

The HD cable box takes on some of these tasks (e.g. deinterlace) when output is locked to say 720p. Some boxes can be set to switch to 480p for all SD broadcasts but a computer monitor normally can't deal with resolution and aspect ratio switching.


* Microsoft would like the equivalent to the cable card to allow PC tuners to receive cable premium services. So far the cable companies have refused. Comcast proposed that the HTPC controls the cable box instead. Video path would be cable box to HDTV. This is not what Microsoft was looking for.

HDTV is more about politics than technology.