Output to HDTV?

[gilatene]

Can someone tell me if this is possible? Can I output a true HD signal to my HDTV? Seems like most of the DVB cards only have composite video outputs. Would it be possible to output the HD signal from the DVI port of my video card??

Your advice is appreciated.

[wejones]

Originally Posted by gilatene

Can someone tell me if this is possible? Can I output a true HD signal to my HDTV? Seems like most of the DVB cards only have composite video outputs. Would it be possible to output the HD signal from the DVI port of my video card??

Your advice is appreciated.

The DVB cards that I have used don't have ANY video output, ie you HAVE to use the computer's video card. I don't have an HDTV, but I have used the Twinhan card to output HD signals to my TV through the video card, and if I did have HDTV, could have used the DCI port like you said. I was using the DVBAPPS software, as I don't think that the VisionDTV software will do it.
However the problem is, that this uses software decoding, and you need a very fast computer. I'm using an approximately 2 GHz computer, and get considerable freezing. When I first put the computer together and installed the DVB software, it worked pretty well, but as I added other software to the computer, it slowed the thing down so that it's only watchable now if I use the 1/4 resolution option. So I recommend that if you do this, try to minimize the other things you have installed on the computer.
Bottom line though is yes, you can do it, but it probably isn't going to be as good a quality as you expect, due to computer speed limitations.

[gilatene]

ahhh, I understand now. I wonder if a 3GHZ processor would do the trick.

Does anybody have any success stories to share? I just want to know that the HDTV quality can be achieved with a PC that doesn't require its own mortgage.

[taz]

You can do the DVI connection if you have it and if you can find the right cable with the correct wiring to make the connection. Or you can do as I did and use an RGB to YPP transcoder box. I have an RCA transcoder box, cost was about $80 and I don't know if it's still avialable. I also use PowerStrip to drive my GeForce 4 ti4200 at 1280x720p which is the native res. of SONY KF60-XBR800 LCD RPJ. The new Nvidia drivers will do 1280x720, but they have no feature for centering or resizing. 1280x720p is probably the res. youll have to use for any set since interlace video cards no longer exsist. The PowerStrip drivers also allow you to center the pic. and reduce over scan. ATI makes a VGA to YPP adapter with hardware switchable settings, but I believe that adapter is specificaly for their cards. I am running a 2.66 ghz P4 with 256 meg of ram, also have the vp1020a card and a hauppauge WinTV-HD card. The Hauppauge card works fine for HD since it has hardware decoding, but the Twinhan card is only slightly jerky with the PBS HD feed from AMC-3 since it uses software decoding. A 3 ghz P4 would propably do the trick.

Oh by the way the VP software does work for HD, it looks great. Only I'm trying to solve a lack of AC3 audio problem right now on the AMC-3 PBS feeds.

Hope this helps

TAZ