Questions Regarding LCDs

I'm in the market for a new (looking mainly @ 24" offerings) LCD and I've got a few questions..

A Playstation 2 will be hooked up by component so I'd like to know, how do wide screen displays typically deal with 4:3 content? is it stretched or is the aspect ratio maintained? And how do progressive displays (like any LCD I would be buying) deal with interlaced input?

Another question... is HDCP completely required? What exactly will I be stopped from doing if I do not own a HDCP compliant display? Is it simply Bluray and HDDVD playback that is impaired? If that's the case and nothing else will be affected I really don't care too much. I'm sure I'll be able to get unprotected versions of movies and whatnot if I feel the need.

I might also by hooking up a PS3 to this monitor at some point in the future, on that topic does it matter if I go with component and not HDMI? You can still do 1080P over component right?

Anyways if somebody could shed some light on this I'd appreciate it!

Thanks in Advance.

P.S. Some suggestions as to what LCDs I should consider buying would also be appreciated!
 
Most LCDs have several options for displaying 4:3 content. Almost all will have native 4:3 mode with black bars on the left/right of the display as the first option. This option is usually followed by stretch modes and zoom modes. For stretch mode there is usually two options normal stretch and smart stretch. The latter will only stretch the sides of the image while keeping the center portion virtually untouched. The former will stretch everything so the image will look vertically compressed making everything look wide.

HDCP normally applies to HD DVD/BD and upscaling DVD players using the HDMI connection. I'm not sure if you could output 1080p for BD movies using component from PS3 or not.

As to buying recommendations, the short list is DELL, NEC, BenQ and Samsung.
 
hmm after a quick search for some reviews I can't seem to find any info on deinterlacing quality.. although it does seem the dell 2407wfp has some issues. Do you any models/makes that are particularly good at this?
 
Back
Top