Geforce 6600 & HD Monitor

[mrcorbo]

I am not connecting it to an actual TV.

I went out last week and bought the Gateway FPD2185W
http://gateway.com/programs/lcd/specs.shtml?cmpid=index*HDLCD21W_overview*tab

That will give you the full specs.

I am currently in the higest the monitor offers of Resolutions of 1680 x 1050.

• Digital (DVI-D): 24-pin DVD-D (supports 480i, 480p, 720p and 1080i). Includes HDCP (High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection)

• Component Y Pb Pr (supports 480i, 480p, 720p and 1080i)

So when I play an HD sample, how do I play it in say 1080i?
The Geforce 6600 says the HDTV out displays in 1080i...
So what do I need to do to watch WMV-HD Sample in true 1080i so I can see an actual High Deffinition videon on my HD Monitor?

If you go into your display properties and hit the "advanced" button and then click on the "geforce 6600" tab you should see in the pane that pops out to the left a line that says "screen resolutions and refresh rates". When you click on this you should see a section tilted "custom resolutions and refresh rates". In this section click the "add" button and try to set up 1920x1080 32 bit 60Hz. If this works, it would make things much easier.

 

[Jynx]

Yeah I tried that already, it makes the screen much bigger then the monitor.

I just wanna know a cple things now is all.

Why the Component breakout pod??
And why it is the only output listed w/ the HD resolutions?

Why WMP won't play my widescreen DVD's in widescreen.

And, now that I think about it..why is this monitor called an "HD Monitor" I mean if I had a widescreen LCD monitor that supported high res and did not list it self as an HD Monitor..would I be in the picture quality..etc I am right now??

 

[mrcorbo]

So what really is the point of the component out on the vid card and the component in on the monitor then?

Well, the component out on the video card is for connecting displays that don't support digital input and the component in on the monitor is for connecting devices that don't support digital output.

 

[Jynx]

Yeah I tried that already, it makes the screen much bigger then the monitor.

I just wanna know a cple things now is all.

Why the Component breakout pod??
And why it is the only output listed w/ the HD resolutions?

Why WMP won't play my widescreen DVD's in widescreen.

And, now that I think about it..why is this monitor called an "HD Monitor" I mean if I had a widescreen LCD monitor that supported high res and did not list it self as an HD Monitor..would I be in the picture quality..etc I am right now??

Because when I tell the card that I am connecting the component out (even though I really wasnt), it will specifically ask me if I want it to be 720p, 1080p..etc

 

[mrcorbo]

Yeah I tried that already, it makes the screen much bigger then the monitor.

Hmm. That would be overscanning. You have officially gone out of my depth as I can't test this on my setup (I have a CRT). What I can do is refer you to a great resource for these types of questions. The Avs Forum

Why WMP won't play my widescreen DVD's in widescreen.

Because when you output at 1680x1050 your player application doesn't realize it is outputting to a widescreen display. There are players (Zoom player comes immediately to mind) that will allow you to force an aspect ratio (in this case 16:9), and they would actually be a better option in terms of getting the best quality. But I was hoping to make it easier for you. Anyway, do a search of the forum I liniked and see if you can't find an answer there.

 

[Tahir2]

Try a different player as suggested previously by myself.. try PowerDVD (you can download a trial or you might have got it with the graphics card).

Why does your graphics card only list HD resolutions with component out? It probably is a driver issue and/or a licensing issue.. not a technical limitation except for maybe 1080i. All these modes can be forced using Powerstrip or other such programs.

 

[Jynx]

Ok well what makes this an HD Monitor (as its printed right on the front panel) vs other 20-21" LCD Monitors that don't say HD Monitor?

I guess I just don't get how these videos are playing in HD. So HD is the resolution only? I mean I find it hard to believe that a lower end card wouldnt plan these HD samples, they don't appear eye popping fantastic to me to think that I can play these only because I have a 6600..

IF the monitor just has to be in a high res format to play the Hi Res HD Videos then what exactly about the video card is sending the movie in HD? I mean say you have an actual HDTV, the cable/Satalite company is sendin the signal in HDTV format.. is that exactly what my DVI card is doing?

Thank guys, And yea I'll check out PowerDVD or other and I will check out that other forum posted as well.

 

[Tahir2]

HD Monitor/HD Ready - is marketting speak for hi-resolution and HDCP with digital inputs. There is no other "magick" to it really, except all the hard work in getting this technology ready for the consumer is complete. The fact that it is effortless now and can be done relatively cheaply is the magick part. Unfortunately that also makes it seem quite ordinary as HD is no longer cutting-edge.

However processing H.264 or even DivX/MPEG2 HD material is processor intensive and lower end systems cannot handle it. A good videocard can offload some of the work done by the CPU normally. But what makes a good videocard for DVD playback is the quality of its deinterlacer as well as other processing. You need good colours so you have features like Digital Vibrance etc. All these things make the 6600 a good graphics card for video playback but not necessarily the best (or even close to the best).

Compared to the average joe you have an advanced setup as average joe is watching Standard Definition broadcasts and is dreaming about HDTV.

 

[mrcorbo]

Ok well what makes this an HD Monitor (as its printed right on the front panel) vs other 20-21" LCD Monitors that don't say HD Monitor?

I guess I just don't get how these videos are playing in HD. So HD is the resolution only? I mean I find it hard to believe that a lower end card wouldnt plan these HD samples, they don't appear eye popping fantastic to me to think that I can play these only because I have a 6600..

IF the monitor just has to be in a high res format to play the Hi Res HD Videos then what exactly about the video card is sending the movie in HD? I mean say you have an actual HDTV, the cable/Satalite company is sendin the signal in HDTV format.. is that exactly what my DVI card is doing?

Thank guys, And yea I'll check out PowerDVD or other and I will check out that other forum posted as well.

Yup. HD is just another way to say >720 lines of vertical resolution. The thing about the WMV-HD samples is that they are heavily compressed. Decompressing the video for playbackis very computationally intensive and the 6600 is capable of accelerating this in hardware taking some of the load off of the main CPU.

If you have a cable/satallite feed, they are sending some form of compressed signal (usually an MPEG2 TS stream). The set top box they give you decodes this signal and outputs it in a format that your monitor can handle. So yes, the set top box would be serving the exact same function your PC and video card do when they playback video.

 

[Jynx]

I was curious so I downloaded one of the 720p samples and played it on my widescreen laptop that is running an old ATI Radeon and a 1.6GHz duron and it looked just fine...what can I make of that??

 

[Jynx]

Also I just used PowerDVD, played in full screen however I found that it seems to look better when hardware acceleration is turned off??

Also, why does the Nvidia Purevideo not showup when I play the video in PowerDVD?

 

[Jynx]

Wow I'm getting annoying huh?

I'm wondering now.. Say I get an HDTV cable box...etc and I connect the cable box to this monitor.. Is the signal sent in a specific res 720 or 1080? And if my monitor is at 1680 x 1050 which is above 720 and below 1080... then how is the picture going to actually look?

 

[Tahir2]

Haha.. you are getting a little incessant but it's all good. Honestly you have the hardware, you should be telling us how everything looks!

 

[mrcorbo]

Wow I'm getting annoying huh?

I'm wondering now.. Say I get an HDTV cable box...etc and I connect the cable box to this monitor.. Is the signal sent in a specific res 720 or 1080? And if my monitor is at 1680 x 1050 which is above 720 and below 1080... then how is the picture going to actually look?

It should be a selectable option on the cable box. You would want to select 1080i. Your monitor would scale this to your display's native resolution and it would look great.

Oh, and as for players. I checked out Media Player Classic which you can get for free from here:

http://internap.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/guliverkli/mpc2kxp6487.7z

If you don't already have the 7-zip file compression software you may need to get that to extract this.

Any way this player allows for aspect ratio adjustment, so you should be able to get your widescreen movies and DVDs to look correct using it. The options are under the "video frame" section under the "view" menu item. Play around with the settings while playing one of the 720p WMV-HD movies until it fills the screen and you should be golden.

 

[Jynx]

The HD samples fill the screen using WMP.
The DVD's however that I insert do not play in full screen using WMP.

I used PowerDVD and it played full screen but did not initialize Nvidia's Purevideo.




And Tahir2, so far everything looks great. Even webpages are just so sharp and vibrant I love it all so far after coming from a NEC CRT that was dying