Which video card with HDMI output for use with HDTV?
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From: me on 8 Aug 2010 17:37 I have a smallish 1080p HDTV and want to hook a desktop up to it Any advice on which video card to buy for such use?
From: Flasherly on 9 Aug 2010 02:15 On Aug 8, 5:37 pm, m...(a)privacy.net wrote: > I have a smallish 1080p HDTV and want to hook a desktop > up to it > > Any advice on which video card to buy for such use? I went from the standpoint of the HDTV connection options. SVGA -- not for all games, not for all streaming video, but everything else is fine. May want to look into matching the "native" resolution of the display within display modes the card supports (I run mine slightly under, so it's not exactly 1:1 -- not bad for OEM drivers, as native mode wasn't available at the time my card was marketed).
From: Paul on 9 Aug 2010 05:47 me(a)privacy.net wrote: > I have a smallish 1080p HDTV and want to hook a desktop > up to it > > Any advice on which video card to buy for such use? If you really wanted an answer, you'd state: 1) Make and model of TV. If there is an actual web product page for the TV, then post a link. That saves time. In your case, you've stated the unit has HDMI as an input, so I suppose that would suffice. But we don't know whether the TV has audio over HDMI or not, and whether you'll need a connection from the sound card or whatever, to make it complete. So better to just state what the TV is, to remove all doubt. With modern video cards, output resolution usually isn't an issue. Only when an LCD gets up to the 2560x1600 level, do you have to worry about dual link DVI or whether it supports whatever HDMI standard supports 340MHz or the like. 2) Make and model of computer. Or, if you built the computer yourself, the make and model of motherboard. Computers come from different eras, with PCI, AGP, PCI Express slots. You'll need a video card to match the expansion slots available. Stating the make and model of computer, provides a lead pointing to that information. If the computer is a slim or ultra-slim, you'll need a "low profile" or "small form factor" video card. In some cases, there really isn't any card that meets all the requirements and is worth spending money on. A regular sized tower style computer can probably use a couple hundred different cards as a solution. 3) OK, you want to hook up the desktop to it. Will you be playing 3D games, like Crysis ? Will you be playing a DVD on the computer, and displaying a movie on the screen ? For 3D gaming, a good frame rate requires a higher end card. For accelerated video playback of various sorts, a recent card is the one to get (as there are acceleration features in some cards). Video acceleration is important in computers that don't have a powerful enough processor to do it all on their own. 4) Budget. I suppose if the features you want aren't that important (you'll take whatever it has to offer), you could always try buying a 5+ year old card, and fitting a DVI to HDMI adapter to the end of it. That would at least get you video, leaving your speaker setup as a separate issue perhaps. For more info, you could start here. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hdmi HTH, Paul
From: me on 9 Aug 2010 12:56 Paul <nospam(a)needed.com> wrote: >If you really wanted an answer, you'd state: > >1) Make and model of TV. If there is an actual web product > page for the TV, then post a link. That saves time. A brand new Vizio 26" HDTV http://www.vizio.com/flat-panel-hdtvs/m260mv.html > >2) Make and model of computer. I don't have the computer yet. I may buy a Dell Optiplex as a "base" and add video card with HDMI output.... or just build myself >3) OK, you want to hook up the desktop to it. Will you be > playing 3D games, like Crysis ? Will you be playing a DVD > on the computer, and displaying a movie on the screen ? No games at all....I'm not a gamer. Just movies and off the air broadcast
From: Paul on 9 Aug 2010 22:53
me(a)privacy.net wrote: > Paul <nospam(a)needed.com> wrote: > >> If you really wanted an answer, you'd state: >> >> 1) Make and model of TV. If there is an actual web product >> page for the TV, then post a link. That saves time. > > A brand new Vizio 26" HDTV > > http://www.vizio.com/flat-panel-hdtvs/m260mv.html > > >> 2) Make and model of computer. > > I don't have the computer yet. I may buy a Dell > Optiplex as a "base" and add video card with HDMI > output.... or just build myself > >> 3) OK, you want to hook up the desktop to it. Will you be >> playing 3D games, like Crysis ? Will you be playing a DVD >> on the computer, and displaying a movie on the screen ? > > No games at all....I'm not a gamer. Just movies and off > the air broadcast > > I checked the manual, and you have *plenty* of input options. One of the HDMI connectors, has a left and right audio next to it (white and red, RCA connectors). You could take a DVI video card, connect a passive DVI to HDMI dongle to it, run an HDMI cable over to the TV set, and that would give video. You could use a 1/8" stereo to dual RCA adapter, to drive audio to the TV speakers (if that is the way you wanted to use it). Radio Shack carries 1/8" audio to RCA connectors in the form of an adapter. There is a 15 pin VGA connector, with a 1/8" stereo audio input next to it. There is component video on the bottom row. YPbPr and two RCA audio jacks. The problem there is, the most recent video cards don't tend to have a mini-DIN on the faceplate, for the component video cable. The last video card I bought (an older design which was still in production), had the ideal I/O types of two DVI-I and a mini-DIN, so my video card can do component. But on the downside, I can't do GPGPU stuff with my video card, I don't have video acceleration, so all I really got out of the deal, was some nice I/O options. Even nicer, would have been VIVO, but they stopped doing VIVO cards a while ago too (that adds video input as an option). So you aren't likely to find component. But if you happened to have an older computer, component video is of higher quality than S-Video or Composite. Component video used to be popular for projector systems. To get audio over HDMI, for your TV, the options are: 1) ATI cards now, usually have an audio solution right on the card. 2) Some Nvidia cards, had a passthru solution. You ran an S/PDIF cable from the motherboard sound, to a two pin connector on the edge of the video card. The digital audio on that cable, would then be placed on the HDMI cable and sent across. That also meant there was no audio driver to install, to make sound work on the TV. You just enabled S/PDIF digital output on the motherboard sound, and then the TV sound would work. 3) It's possible there are Nvidia cards with integrated sound now - I haven't been keeping track. You don't need to be in a rush at this point. Your new computer is likely to have *some* connector you can use. Now, if the analog audio on your new computer, happened to have "clone mode", then you'd be all set. Some motherboard audio solutions, have a software option (tick box), where they take a copy of Line_Out and put it on a second connector. That allows a user to drive two audio devices, with the same audio content. It saves having to buy a "Y" cable for 1/8" audio, then connecting that to a 1/8" to dual RCA adapter and so on. So I don't think this is going to be much of a challenge for you. It should be pretty easy to set up. The hardest part of the adventure, will be finding the button + menu on the TV, that allows you to select "computer input" :-) At least one poster here recently, was helping a friend, and they couldn't seem to find the option to enable computer input, and the thing was "stuck on TV". This is a video card picked at random. I didn't pick the cheapest one. It has a PCI Express connector on it (because that is what your new computer video slot will have). As long as your new computer isn't something obscure (like uses a mini-ITX motherboard with a PCI connector or something), it is likely to use PCI Express x16. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814131331 That card has one HDMI, a DVI, a VGA on it. A little of everything. The DVI is dual link (can drive a 2560x1600 30" Apple monitor). UVD 2 dedicated video playback accelerator (less processor loading, for a limited set of movie standards). HDMI 1.3 version on the HDMI connector (I don't know if you can get HDMI 1.4 on video cards yet). Integrated HD audio controller (that means the video card comes with an audio driver on the CD, and your Sound control panel, ends up with an additional audio device added to it. You select that audio device, to get sound on the TV via the HDMI cable.). http://www.powercolor.com/us/products_features.asp?id=213 I picked a card that expensive, because if I'd selected a $40 video card, it would likely be as powerful and capable as the video that comes with the computer already. The ATI 5000 series video cards are pretty good on idle power, so the fan shouldn't need to spool up when you're doing email or web surfing. You can see a listing of video cards here. http://www.gpureview.com/videocards.php and benchmarks for some of the cards are here. You can see the card I picked, only gives 33% of the performance of the card at the top of the chart, so it isn't much of a gamer card. http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/2010-gaming-graphics-charts-high-quality/Battlefield-Bad-Company-2,2237.html Paul |