Best way to hook the computer up to the HDTV??

[ProfJohn]

If I wanted to hook up one of my computers to the HDTV what would be the best way of doing this?

S-cable?
DVI > HDMI?

Or something else.

 

[cubby1223]

dvi > hdmi

 

[TerryMathews]

Depends on several factors, what kind of HDTV, native resolution, and what ports you have available.

If the TV is 1080p, your decision making is a little easier as DVI and HDMI will be the same. If it's 720p though it's a little more complicated.

Most 720p LCD HDTVs are actually 1366x768. If that is the case, these are your options depending on connections available, from best to worst:
1) DVI
2) VGA
3) HDMI
4) Component

The reason why is that HDMI and component are limited in the resolutions they support, only 640x480, 1280x720, and 1920x1080. As you can see, the TV would have to scale the 1280x720 up to its native resolution, and that doesnt look that great.

 

[themisfit610]

Yep. This is an often overlooked fact. DVI FTW

It's nice to have those extra pixels, but it always introduces scaling which must be avoided wherever possible!!!

Even VGA at that resolution wouldn't be bad at all. Above 1600x1200 / 1680x1050 VGA starts to get fuzzy unless you have really really good analog circuitry in your TV and video card, and a nice fat shielded cable to boot.

DVI will probably be your best bet, though you may have to force the native resolution of your TV. Powerstrip at the worst...

~MiSfit

 

[Shawn]

DVI would probably be best in most cases but didn't work out so well for me. I was unable to get 1080p over DVI on my 40" Sony Bravia for some reason. 1080i would work but as soon as I selected 60Hz the screen would go black (which is weird because my blu-ray player outputs 1080p fine).

Anyway I ended up using VGA and Powerstrip to get 1080p. It looks really good and it freed up an HDMI port on my TV so I'm not gonna screw with it.