[grimloki]

As far as I have read, the only way to get a panasonic plasma G1 or S1 (not sure about others) to do 1:1 Pixel mapping is to use a HDMI to HDMI connection, driving the monitor at native resolution, and the settings on the tv set to HD SIZE 2, which turns off overscanning, while the PC drivers must have the underscanning turned off.

The only way to set HD size 2 on the panasonics is if the TV is receiving 1080i or 1080p through HDMI, otherwise the option is greyed out.

At least, this is what I read. I dont have access to a plasma to test it.

http://www.highdefforum.com/flat-pan...-tc-p42s1.html

I'm super-curious to find out if I can purchase a plasma display as my only monitor for my gaming/htpc rig, and let my girlfriend use it for emails and web access.

I know the earlier crop of Plasmas were pc-unfriendly, and the 720p native resolution wasn't great. Can someone point me to a comparison of Plasma screeens and text, vs LCD? Are plasmas really that bad as a monitor? Ignoring image retention problems... is the sharpness bad enough to make using them a pain?

I prefer CRTs to LCDs... and plasma is alot closer to a crt.

[BRiT]

grimloki, that is correct. On my 54" V10, I use HDMI, set tv to HD Size 2, and set ATI to 0% underscan. It detects as 1080p.

[ShaidarHaran]

DVI->HDMI works fine as well, as I do precisely this on my Panny.

[Anon Lamer]

Panasonic plasmas use 4:2:2 chroma subsampling.

That means - as I understand it - every other pixel is interpolated and they are fine for watching lossy data streams such as your favorite porn movie but they cannot provide a pixel-perfect view of your windows desktop.
This is a limitation of the onboard control electronics and not the plasma screen itself. LCDs tend to be 4:4:4 since the manufacturers apparently expect people to use them with computers.
I visited the video store and noticed that the both panasonic and samsung plasmas appeared to use 4:2:2 subsampling but the LG plasma appeared to be 4:4:4 since it lacked the telltale blue edge to white letters on black background, something both the panasonics and the samsung had. Screens were this years edition.

See http://www.avforums.com/review/Panas...TV-Review.html

"It's also worth noting here that at all times, the TX-P42G20 displayed video signals in 4:2:2 format. This means that the coloured components of the picture are at half-resolution; a common shortcut used in the video world, which takes advantage of the fact that our eyes are less sensitive to colour in relation to brightness. (DVD and Blu-ray Disc video uses even lower chroma resolution, which is why TVs processing the video at 4:2:2 is generally fine). I mention this in the gaming section because games consoles can output full resolution colour (4:4:4 format). When input to this display, the chroma resolution will be downgraded. This is a little surprising, because Panasonic themselves are some of the biggest advocates I can think of of high-resolution chroma processing - they make a point of publicising it when present in their Blu-ray Disc products."