Widescreen on DLP using PC

[imported_DoctaBu]

Ok. First off, a little background:

My family wants to have a little "media PC" to have downstairs connected to our Samsung HLM437W DLP projection screen. We want to use it to browse the web, watch movies, play music from all of our harddrives, plus possibly play games, eventhough thats probably on the bottom of the list.

Now, I have two questions to you smart people out there:

1. How can I get my video card to spit out widescreen resolutions? I can only seem to get it do like 800x600, and not the full widescreen I'd like. I read up in the manual, and it just says "look in your PC's manual," which of course I don't have because I built the thing.

2. What would you recommend to use OS and software-wise? I hear that there's some good Linux software to use for such a media PC, but I'm not too good with Linux quite yet. I'm a bit worried to jump into that. I was hoping I could get a copy of Win XP Media Center when it comes out (I heard it was coming out soon), but maybe something else would work just as well?

That's pretty much all I have to ask. Thanks for your help guys!

Bu

 

[rbV5]

1. How can I get my video card to spit out widescreen resolutions? I can only seem to get it do like 800x600, and not the full widescreen I'd like. I read up in the manual, and it just says "look in your PC's manual," which of course I don't have because I built the thing.

What connection are you using, and what graphics card are you using? What connections does the DLP have?

 

[oupei]

I believe 1280x720 is pretty standard and both my GF3 and GF4 do it out of the box (I just tried it on my CRT). I'm not sure if your tv supports it, so I dunno if that helps you. but ideally if your tv had dvi or vga inputs and if it supported 1280x720 then this should be almost plug and play. For the stuff you listed you'd like to do with your htpc, I don't see why you would need anything more than winxp.

 

[RichieZ]

i don't know if your tv has a VGA input, I have a newer samsung DLP: HLP5063W.

Anyways you need to use something like powerstrip or rage3d tweak (for ati cards) to enable 1280x720 output.

I'm sure if you use the DVI or VGA input it will work, but I'm not sure if you do this via s-video or component.

 

[imported_DoctaBu]

It has a VGA input, and I have an old Geforce 2 something on the computer. It's pretty darn old. It also has that white connection thing... usually used for LCDs... what is it? SVGA? I forget.

 

[HombrePequeno]

You're going to need Powerstrip to make that work. You can read up more on how to do it at HTPC News. They have a buttload of info at that site and if you have specific questions you can go to the forums there and ask them.

 

[rbV5]

Forceware does support 720p timings out of the box, but your display may not sync with them (I can't get 1080i to sync with mine) There is also custom timing support (somewhat complex, as in above my head at this point) Thats where I'd start. You could head to AVS forums and check the HTPC guides in the HTPC forum, it will help with using a utility like powerstrip if you need it.

 

[imported_DoctaBu]

Well I got it working!

I guess to detect the Samsung as a widescreen monitor, the screen needed to be set to Wide (PC) and nothing else. I had originally had it set to regular (PC) so it wouldn't stretch, but looks like this fixed the problem.

However, I'm a bit worried about downloading GeForce drivers because I'm afraid it'll eliminate the extra res options I had...

By the way, anything on DivX or XviD looks BEAUTIFUL on this thing. Definitely DVD quality. Oh man, this is definitely exciting.

By the way, does anybody know of somewhere that you can download tons of codecs, all built into one?

Thanks again, guys!

Bu

 

[HombrePequeno]

You might want to download ffdshow and play around with that. Apparently you can get an extremely high quality picture with it.

 

[Nebor]

Originally posted by: HombrePequeno
You might want to download ffdshow and play around with that. Apparently you can get an extremely high quality picture with it.

You just said at least 2 weeks worth of tweaking.