Please help me get HD working on my 2405

digitalduck

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Nov 24, 2003
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Ok, Ive had my 2405 for about a week now and I just now have tried to hook up my DVR to the monitor and see what kind of results I would have and I guess there are still a few things I dont understand about this monitor or HD or both because im just not getting the results I was hoping for. All in all I love this monitor for gaming and high res images, but can you explain what im doing wrong in terms of everything else?

Ok, I tried first hooking up my DVR since it has component and DVI out and my cable provider has a few hd channels on their lineup so I wanted to see what it would look like, knowing that s-video would look like crap I first tried DVI, forgetting about the whole HDCP thing I got the message telling me that the monitor is not complient and then the screen went black. I didnt have enough time to see if the DVR had an option to turn of HDCP and now the dvr function isnt working on the regular tv when I hooked it back up..coincidence, dont know, going to take it back and swap it out for a new one. So then I switched to component and went to the local NBC HD channel and the result I got was THIS the image was just like it would look like on regular tv in fact it was worse and notice the choppy white bar across the top. Also why was it so compact like that?

Basically I want to know how to get the most out of this monitor..I know its great for games, but I want to use it for HD as well if possible. When I tested it I just ran it directly from the DVR to the monitor. Was I missing something? Do I need aditional hardware or something? When I was testing it I was using my cable providers DVR which serves as their HDTV receiver.

I dont fully understand the whole 1080p thing or how it applies to HDTV and this monitor but either way if it looks like that I guess I wont be watching it on it... what can I do? thanks I look forward to reading your replies
 

xtknight

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Downscaling on the analog signal because of lack of HDCP support? I wasn't aware anything actually required HDCP today but maybe I've been under a rock lately.
 

digitalduck

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A lot of people have this monitor, someone must know whats going on, I would really like to use this monitor for HD was well..
 
Mar 19, 2003
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This may be a stupid question, but are you sure that you were actually watching HD content at the time you were testing it? The picture you linked to looks to me like an upscaling of regular 480i programming (a commercial in this case) - most of the national "free" networks (like NBC) only broadcast HD content during primetime (7-10pm, at least in the Central time zone) and for the late-night shows on NBC and CBS (after the local news). And that's just the main programming; most commercials are not yet HD even during broadcasts that are in HD.

The image in the picture looks so small because the channel is broadcasting a 16:9 signal (this will be letterboxed in your monitor because your monitor is taller at 16:10), and 4:3 signals are almost always "pillarboxed" inside that 16:9 signal, instead of stretched. So the net effect is that any 4:3 programming on a channel that broadcasts a 16:9 HD signal will appear as a box within the 16:9 frame, which itself is bordered by black bars on the top and bottom of your monitor. 4:3 content will generally be surrounded by "black bars" on all four sides for that reason.

Since you have a cable box/DVR, I'm assuming you receive several premium/non-free HD channels too (such as TNT-HD, INHD, whatever)...if you do have access to any of those, they would be much more likely to be broadcasting HD content at hours of the day other than primetime. As I said, the national "free" networks (the ones you can get with an antenna) usually do not have any HD content to broadcast during the day - with the exception of big sports events sometimes.
 

digitalduck

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Nov 24, 2003
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My cable provider has local NBC at channel 11 but channel 300 is NBC HD, the image is from that channel. Aside from that, im not sure. I would assume that channel is HD 24/7 since the channel doesnt come in at all on my regular tv.
 
Mar 19, 2003
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Originally posted by: digitalduck
My cable provider has local NBC at channel 11 but channel 300 is NBC HD, the image is from that channel. Aside from that, im not sure. I would assume that channel is HD 24/7 since the channel doesnt come in at all on my regular tv.

Well, the catch is, the signal itself is 16:9 HD (1920x1080i for NBC) all day - but if there's no HD source for a particular program, there's no HD for them to broadcast - so for much of the day, they just upconvert their regular 4:3 SD (480i) content. This could be caused by them running old programs from videotape that don't have HD versions available, or live broadcasts (like news/sports) that are recorded with conventional SD cameras and no HD ones available, etc. HDTV is still very much a work in progress, and, at least on the main national networks, it'll probably be a while before "most" of what they broadcast is really HD (as opposed to upconverted SD content placed in a 16:9 frame). Primetime programs (drama/comedy/etc.) are usually in HD because they're often shot on film, which has plenty of resolution for an HD transfer during post-production.

Your local TV listings (or TitanTV) should indicate whether a particular program is in HD or not - tune in when something with the "HD" logo is supposed to be on..

(The forums died for about two hours :p)
 

digitalduck

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Hmm... so even though they make a seperate channel just for NBC HD, it might not broadcast HD all the time? that sux :) I took a look and we have TNT, TMC, NBC, CBS and about 5 others in HD channels. So ill give it another shot to see if that was the case and if it wasnt just a hardware issue or something hopefully, ill post a pic when im done. It looks like there is a show in prime time on right now ill see what i can find... Thanks :)
 

digitalduck

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That was it...it works!, it looks like it was simply the time of day and the fact that it was a commercial I took a pic of and not the program and that the program wasnt during primetime or wasnt a game etc. I snapped a few pics of crossing jordan on NBC HD and an NBa game on TNT and some MLB on ESPN all showed up great, well better anyway.

Crossing Jordan NBC

MLB HD

MLB HD

NBA HD

I wasnt blown away by the quality but then again I was using component instead of DVI and im not sure if this dvr box has an option to shut off the HDCP protection or not (ive heard some give you that option) My camera does take away some of the quality of course, but it didnt look that bad. However, my tv still looks better I think....what else can I do. Or is it because my only other experience with HD is on the big 50" plasmas at best buy and I know that this monitor isnt going to look like that, but then again that same time, should it look better then tv broadcast quality or am I being picky? After all, its HD

Thanks!!
 

Markbnj

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Originally posted by: digitalduck
Hmm... so even though they make a seperate channel just for NBC HD, it might not broadcast HD all the time? that sux :) I took a look and we have TNT, TMC, NBC, CBS and about 5 others in HD channels. So ill give it another shot to see if that was the case and if it wasnt just a hardware issue or something hopefully, ill post a pic when im done. It looks like there is a show in prime time on right now ill see what i can find... Thanks :)

There are a couple of other possibilitiies, in addition to what has been mentioned so far.

First, component can't handle 1080 lines, as far as I know, so you'll want to get the HDMI working. I have not heard of any DVR boxes that require HDCP to connect to a monitor, so I'm guessing you have some other issue. Which leads to my second suggestion.

Cable DVRs convert everything to a single output format. If you've been watching a regular SDTV then the DVR is probably configured to output 480i (480 lines, interlaced). That resolution may not be compatible with the 2405 and your graphics adapter, although I think it should be.

When we recently bought our first widescreen LCD TV we had to go into the cable box setup, and tell it to output 1080i to the DVI port. With the 2405 that's the setting you'll want as well. There is also a setting for aspect ratio, and I think you'll want to leave that on auto (meaning it will send 4:3, or 16:9 depending on the content). 4:3 looks terrible stretched, and you are better off watching it centered in the 2405.

16:9 will not fill the full screen on a 2405, which is a 16:10 display, but rather than stretch it I just live with the bars. Anyway, I'm guessing your issue is with the cable box setup.

I dont fully understand the whole 1080p thing or how it applies to HDTV and this monitor but either way if it looks like that I guess I wont be watching it on it... what can I do? thanks I look forward to reading your replies

It relates to how many scanlines are in the image, and how they are sent to the panel for display. Standard NTSC television is 480 lines of 720 pixels, however the standard was developed for old, slow CRTs, so it interlaces those 480 lines. This means that on the first pass the gun paints every other line for a total of 240 lines, and on the next pass it paints the other 240.

When a panel paints the whole display top to bottom in one pass this is called "progressive scan." So when you see 480i, it's interlaced, while 480p is progressive. 480p is available on many DVDs and players and can be handled by any 4:3 ratio LCD television, probably any CRT monitor, and maybe some televisions.

The next standard is 720p, which is the native resolution of what they call EDTV, and still looks pretty damn good in comparison to SDTV.

Then there is 1080i. This is the current max for all broadcast HD content, as well as for most cable boxes and mid-range DVD players. There are a few DVD players at the high end that upscale to 1080p using special algorithms, so that you can take advantage of 1080p displays like the 2405 (actually it's a 1200p display that can do 1080p). I think the PS3 outputs 1080p. But that's about it.

Someone else mentioned that you will see a range of quality on different channels and programs, and this is very much true. On a high-end channel like Discovery most of the broadcast features are 1920 x 1080i. But commercials are upscaled 480i, 4:3 content. On the network channels 720p or lower is common for filler programs. Bear in mind that 1080-capable panels are pretty recent. The average flat panel "HDTV" being sold still maxes out at 1366 x 768, which is just enough to handle 720p. I recently bought a 1080p 37" panel for our family room, and the 1080i content now looks gorgeous. Not a whole bunch of it around though.
 

digitalduck

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Thanks for the indepth reply Markbnj, so aside from the fact that the large plasmas at BB are, well, plasmas, which is one of many reasons why they look so good, taking a look at the pics I posted 2 posts back, should I be expecting amazing quality with this minitor? I know its not HDMI compatable (that I know of) so im limited to component at the moment since the monitor doesnt support HDCP, so am I really going to take a hit because of it and is that where im going to see the difference in quality? It looked good, but not as good as I was hoping... what else can I do?
 
Mar 19, 2003
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Originally posted by: digitalduck
Thanks for the indepth reply Markbnj, so aside from the fact that the large plasmas at BB are, well, plasmas, which is one of many reasons why they look so good, taking a look at the pics I posted 2 posts back, should I be expecting amazing quality with this minitor? I know its not HDMI compatable (that I know of) so im limited to component at the moment since the monitor doesnt support HDCP, so am I really going to take a hit because of it and is that where im going to see the difference in quality? It looked good, but not as good as I was hoping... what else can I do?

Honestly I'm not sure since I have no experience with cable boxes (I get my HDTV with a PCI tuner with a DVI daughtercard). Picture quality will vary from broadcast to broadcast (even HD ones). Sometimes local channels (or the cable/satellite company) will compress a signal (give it less than the full bitrate), causing it to artifact and otherwise lose detail compared to a full-bitrate channel. One way to determine this would be to look at the TitanTV info for your local broadcast channels and see if any of them have two or more subchannels - if this is the case, they're splitting up their bandwidth and the main HD signal won't look as good.

Beyond that, as I said, some HD programs just don't look as good as others. (Also, here I should mention that the above post was not technically correct in some ways - 720p is considered HDTV, as is 1080i/p. 480p is what's called "EDTV".) I've seen some 1080i programs that have blown me away with their picture quality (some live stuff like The Tonight Show or Conan O'Brien, or prerecorded stuff like CSI), while others I've seen aren't so impressive (especially if the channel/company is starving the signal for bandwidth). For example, 24 on FOX looks nice, definitely better than DVD quality, but it's not as amazingly sharp and clear like some other HD broadcasts are.

Also there is the HDCP issue - you're pretty much out of luck for DVI (unless you buy a really expensive adapter), and I don't know if your cable box downscales the analog signal. When you're watching something in HD on your monitor, what resolution does the OSD display? As mentioned above, you might need to tell your cable box to output a certain resolution (1080i would be ideal probably).
 

digitalduck

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Nov 24, 2003
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DVR is back in the living room.... (dvr in the LR, digital cable box in the bedroom) ill hook it back up in here and see what menu options i get from it...as soon as I figured this out I was going to trade in the digital box for a 2nd dvr but didnt need a 2nd one, but now that I have this monitor for HD ill need one, but I kep the DVR in the living room since the big tv is out there.... yeah, things would be easier with 2 :) ill update with info, thanks!
 

digitalduck

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Shoot... after hooking it back up again and waiting for services to come back on again, the cable box doesnt have any options to change resolutions such as 1080i...ill have to call them tomorrow its this box btw.
 

Markbnj

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Originally posted by: digitalduck
Shoot... after hooking it back up again and waiting for services to come back on again, the cable box doesnt have any options to change resolutions such as 1080i...ill have to call them tomorrow its this box btw.

Yes it does. See the User Guide under User Options. You'll see a section for output over component/DVI. You can change this to 1080i, 720p, 720i, etc. You'll need to set it to 1080i to get the best quality out of HD.

Also carefully read the section on optimizing your DCT output, which is right above User Options. It goes into this in detail, and also tells you how to access the menu, which is a little tricky.

As for DVI vs HDMI... they are essentially compatible except that HDMI sends the audio and the digital video stream. Your DVR may not have HDMI. I have the same or very similar model and it only has DVI. Since you don't care about audio you can use a DVI to DVI link to the monitor.
 

digitalduck

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Man you gottta be kidding me, the DVR has to be off for me to access a different menu that I cant access when its on... no wonder I couldnt find it.. never knew that since I never had to access the HD menu :) thanks Markbnj, as for HDMI, no it doesnt. but that DVI to DVI link sounds interesting, well, off to hook it up again and see what resolution its at at default... ill let you know :)
 

digitalduck

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Now thats better....I was able to switch it to 1080i and did see much better results. It was on 480p so it does look a lot better. I posted a pic of 1080i. Question though, since the letterboxing bars are gone now, is it stretching out the image since its 16x10 and not 16x9? I tried a setting to force 16x9 and if i remember it added letterboxing to make it 16x9, but if it isnt actually stretching the image then great, I was going to take a 2 shot comparison but didnt find a suitable spot that stayed in the same place long enough for me to change the res and take another pic.

ESPN 1080i

menu shot of res
 
Mar 19, 2003
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Originally posted by: digitalduck
Now thats better....I was able to switch it to 1080i and did see much better results. It was on 480p so it does look a lot better. I posted a pic of 1080i. Question though, since the letterboxing bars are gone now, is it stretching out the image since its 16x10 and not 16x9? I tried a setting to force 16x9 and if i remember it added letterboxing to make it 16x9, but if it isnt actually stretching the image then great, I was going to take a 2 shot comparison but didnt find a suitable spot that stayed in the same place long enough for me to change the res and take another pic.

ESPN 1080i

menu shot of res

Hmm...Is your monitor set to "Aspect" scaling in the Image Settings menu? If it's "Fill", it'll fill the whole screen...for 1:1 I'm not sure but I think it should show the right aspect ratio in your case, since you do actually have 1920x1080 pixels. That's the only thing I can think of...as long as your cable box is set to output 1080i and 16:9, then the monitor is almost surely stretching the image a bit vertically.
 

digitalduck

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Nov 24, 2003
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I should correct something I think, the defualt setting in addition to 480p before I switched it to 1080i was 4x3. It had an option for 16x9 and that is when it added the letterboxing on top and bottom which makes sense..., the pic of ESPN is when it was at 4x3 default should I leave it there if i dont mind the letterboxing or swith to 16x9.. i guess there is a preference thing...

 
Mar 19, 2003
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Originally posted by: digitalduck
I should correct something I think, the defualt setting in addition to 480p before I switched it to 1080i was 4x3. It had an option for 16x9 and that is when it added the letterboxing on top and bottom which makes sense..., the pic of ESPN is when it was at 4x3 default should I leave it there if i dont mind the letterboxing or swith to 16x9.. i guess there is a preference thing...

There isn't too much of a difference (assuming it really is just stretching vertically, as opposed to cropping some of the image). It is really a preference thing, yeah...I used to have my monitor stretch HDTV content (from my tuner) vertically because it would sometimes misinterpret 1080i signals and squeeze them to the middle of the screen (at "Aspect")...but I switched back to non-stretched and actually I do notice a difference, I don't like the "vertically stretched" look anymore. But I did run it like that for a while and didn't mind then...just do whatever makes you happy :p
 

digitalduck

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Question... I cant change the image settings in the OSD under DVI right? because I noticed since ive had the monitor that every option was greyed out.... referring to changing it to Aspect or Fill.... unless im completely missing something...
 
Mar 19, 2003
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Originally posted by: digitalduck
Question... I cant change the image settings in the OSD under DVI right? because I noticed since ive had the monitor that every option was greyed out.... referring to changing it to Aspect or Fill.... unless im completely missing something...

Most settings are unavailable with DVI, but the Aspect/Fill/1:1 (Scaling) setting should still be visible...at least, I can still access/change that setting on DVI connections on my 2005FPW.
 

digitalduck

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Damn, I wonder if it has to do with having the DVI hooked up currently, im just guessing here. The entire Image settings section of the OSD is greyed out, everything else is ok. The images are bright but nothing else, hmmm..... well, i cant change it, any ideas? Does the OSD work with out a video source for the monitor as long as it has power? If I could somehow change it then hopefully it will stay that way.
 
Mar 19, 2003
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Originally posted by: digitalduck
Damn, I wonder if it has to do with having the DVI hooked up currently, im just guessing here. The entire Image settings section of the OSD is greyed out, everything else is ok. The images are bright but nothing else, hmmm..... well, i cant change it, any ideas? Does the OSD work with out a video source for the monitor as long as it has power? If I could somehow change it then hopefully it will stay that way.

Not sure, I've never tried using the OSD without a video source connected...I thought you had the cable box connected via Component and not DVI though?