new plasma, 720p/1080i

[wtfbbq]

I've ordered a new 42" Plasma TV capable of playing 720p and 1080i. I am interested in hooking up my computer to this. I was wondering about a few things:

- Will the quality of DVD ripped movies (into divx/xvid) be alright on the TV? Let's say that vary from 700 to 1400 mb...
- Will Svideo be good enough to maintain high quality when hooked up to a TV? I've read on the forums that HDMI is the best, but those cables seem to be expensive, and many also say composite (cables will go computer -> svideo -> receiver -> yellow composite video cable -> tv)
- Will a 100ft svideo cable be more "lossy" than a short svideo cable?

thanks for your help, i'm a complete beginner to this.

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

Some might look ok, others might look like crap.

S-video is limited to 480i and will give you very limited results.

Component would be a good alternative to the cables you already mentioned.
Monoprice, Cablesforless, and Partsexpress are some options for affordable cable.

Composite is going to look terrible. Much worse than s-video.

At lengths like 100ft you may run into issues.


What kind of video out options does your videocard have, and what kind of inputs does your TV have?

How are you going to handle sound?

 

[VisionxOrb]

S video is going to look like crap, if you have to run analoug due to the distance run component cable ( basicly the red grean and blue cable for video ). thatway you can atleast run 720 and 1080. But if you can get an HDMI cable to go that long its going to be your best bet. monoprice is a good place for hdmi cables.

heres a 100ft right here and rated to be ran in the wall
http://www.monoprice.com/products/produ...024001&p_id=2894&seq=1&format=2&style=

 

[wtfbbq]

link to the TV

HDTV supported inputs
Component Input 2 (YPbPr) : 480p/480i/720p/1080i
HDMI : 480p/480i/720p/1080i :1
analog cable/antenna input

I have an x800 XT, not sure what outputs it has (2 svideo, 2 yellow, monitor, and a long white area with lots of squares)

for audio I was planning on getting a long 3.5mm (? normal audio line) to red/white cable, but am now completely reconsidering whether it is worth it to hook up my computer to the TV.

i have no HD DVD's and am not really considering getting digital cable, so would trying to get everything in the best resolution be pointless if i'm just playing "normal" DVD's and video files? (and before anyone rags on me for getting the plasma... i had a substantial discount and watch LOTS of movies, just not HD ones )

btw thanks for the help... seems like there's a lot of option for this whole home theater thing... i've had my old TV for 10+ years and thought it was "advanced" when i finally bought a 15 dollar svideo cable and hooked up my computer to it for the first time

 

[Piuc2020]

Your brand new 720p Plasma doesn't have VGA?

 

[wtfbbq]

Video connectors 1 HDMI, 1 Antenna Input, 2 Composite Video In, 2 Component Input (Y, Pb, Pr), 2 (total) S-Video Input, PC Input (RGB-VGA), A/V Out, 1 Composite Video Out
Other connectors 4 Analog Audio In, 1 Digital Audio Out, 1 Video Out (composite), 1 Audio Out (analog), RS-232

good point, didn't look down all the way. Is VGA quality good?

did a little bit of reading, seems like it is. would i need a M/M or a M/F?

 

[JBT]

Originally posted by: Piuc2020
Your brand new 720p Plasma doesn't have VGA?

not many do... They will usually go for HDMI or DVI. Of course HDMI will be the best in this case.

That long white connector with all the holes on your video card is DVI.
If I were you I would get a DVI to HDMI converter and then run HDMI the 100ft for best quality

You more than likely will want M/M.

 

[wtfbbq]

hm... it seems like you can get 100 ft VGA cables for 30ish, as opposed to the 110ish for the HDMI. What is the quality of VGA compared to component or HDMI?

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

Originally posted by: wtfbbq
link to the TV

HDTV supported inputs
Component Input 2 (YPbPr) : 480p/480i/720p/1080i
HDMI : 480p/480i/720p/1080i :1
analog cable/antenna input

I have an x800 XT, not sure what outputs it has (2 svideo, 2 yellow, monitor, and a long white area with lots of squares)

for audio I was planning on getting a long 3.5mm (? normal audio line) to red/white cable, but am now completely reconsidering whether it is worth it to hook up my computer to the TV.

i have no HD DVD's and am not really considering getting digital cable, so would trying to get everything in the best resolution be pointless if i'm just playing "normal" DVD's and video files? (and before anyone rags on me for getting the plasma... i had a substantial discount and watch LOTS of movies, just not HD ones )

btw thanks for the help... seems like there's a lot of option for this whole home theater thing... i've had my old TV for 10+ years and thought it was "advanced" when i finally bought a 15 dollar svideo cable and hooked up my computer to it for the first time

I watch regular DVDs on my screen and that works fine. If your source is regular DVDs though, then getting a DVD player would be soooo much easier than going through all this (including issues like how do you plan on controlling the playing of the files)

If you're playing divx that's compressed to fit on a CD or two, then you're going to not be taking advantage of how good your display can look. The larger the screen gets (or rather how large your viewing angle gets), the more obvious the problems with a heavily compressed video file are. I guess it depends on how picky you are, but as your screen gets larger, you wont want to watch anything worse than DVD quality on it.

If you have all your movies on discs, have you considered getting a DVD player that plays divx files in addition to regular DVDs? You'd still have all the video quality issues, but your implementation plan would get substantially easier.

 

[wtfbbq]

I have have the philips dvp642 DVD player that can play divx files, but it still can't play a lot of things. Also, I watch a lot of foreign films w/o hardsubs, and when those are .avi it can't play the subs. Maybe i'll just hook it up to the old TV... i've been surviving with it so far, i can afford to go back to it sometimes i suppose. for my DVD player now I am using the yellow composite video cable to hook up my DVD player... is that fine for regular old DVD's, or should I get some of thoes RGB cables? and for future reference if I change around my setup and am able to more conveniently hook up my computer, is VGA much better than svideo?

thanks again for all the help, i really appreciate it. it's hard being a noob.

btw sweet setup jello, looks awesome.

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

Get some component cables to hook up your DVD player.

Something like this will work well
https://www.cablesforless.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWCATS&Category=781

VGA will be MUCH better and composite or s-video. You'll be able to go higher than 480i for one benefit.

HDMI will also be much better, and if they did a good job implementing it could give you the best results.

There can be some scaling issues though. If you sent 720p to your Plasma though, you should be in good shape in the future.