I don't know if this is the right forum but here's an off the wall question: Can I use my HDTV as a PC monitor? Would I be able to display 1024x768? It would sure be nice to get rid of my bulky 20" PC monitor and have my TV do double duty !

If it has the proper inputs, yes.

Alex,
It sounds like you might need a VGA to DTV converter. I don't know if ther is such a thing yet. You can get a VGA to NTSC converter but these aren't worth the money. The converter I had (until I returned it) would go up to 1024 X 768 but the display was pretty much unreadable. Even dropping down to 640 x 480 does not give an acceptable data display. I would be interested if anyone knows of a VGA to DTV converter!

Not quite to the point, but related...

HDTV capable sets have the required resolution to use as computer monitors. All you need is a way to get the computer's signal in.

Most Computer Monitors, on the other hand, already have enough resolution potential to show HDTV signal. Since millions probably already own a nice monitor with the ability, has anyone found a supplier of HDTV receiver/tuners with a VGA out for plugging a computer monitor into? Such a product would be an inexpensive way to show the multitudes what HDTV can look like. Heck, the TV manufacturers should give them to computer monitor owners for free. What better way to convince us to spend money on a LARGE HDTV monitor?

Just curious.

Dave

If I'm not mistaken, the RCA HDTV/DirecTV reciever ONLY has VGA output, that is why many HDTV owners are upset, because they cannot use it to decode HDTV, but it is cheap, only about $600. There is a solution, a company called Audio Authority makes a converter box that translates VGA to Component Video for about $127. If your HDTV has 5 RCA or BNC jacks for HDTV input, all you need is a VGA to BNC cable, I've seen them at my local computer store for about $20-$30. If your tv has 3 RCA jacks (ie Toshiba) you will need the Audio Authority converter to use the RCA HDTV/DirecTV decoder box.

I just spoke with the sales manager at Audio Authority today. They are selling their 90A60 VGA to Component converter as fast as they can make them. They currently have a 3 week backlog. He said you may be able to find one of these at www.copperbox.com.

I was also at "Good Guys" today looking for something similar to the AA 90A60 and the salesman said that RCA will have something like this in May.

Just FYI ,

Alex

Well, it'a couple of weeks later and I'm still struggling with getting my computer to display on
my Mits. WS HDTV. I tried using a RGBHV cable as
suggested by Joe. This cable along with PowerStrip
video card control software will allow me to display
640x480. It looks quite nice but has some minor convergence problems on the left side of the screen.

My problem is that I can't display any higher resolutions(800x600 or 1024x768). I either get a blue screen which tells me the set is not detecting any signal or I get a black screen which I think may mean that the set is detecting something, but not something that it can deal with.

If I had a scope I could look at the video levels coming from the video card (Voodoo 3)and see if they were in spec. This may be critical since the TV has no 'muli-syncing' or display size or display postion controls like a computer monitor has.

Does anybody know what's the size of a HD display in pixels?

Has anybody had any experience in this area? Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Alex

The problem most likely is the horizontal scan frequency of your computers, VGA output. The highest scan frequency required for HDTV is the one for 720p. It calculates about like this:
720 lines x 60Hz vertical refresh = 43,200 Hz horizontal scan frequency.
For 1080i it is:
1080 lines x 60Hz refresh /2 (interlaced!) = 32400 Hz horizontal scan frequency.
So - HDTV monitors aren't built to take anything above 43.2 kHz. Your computer is most likely set to a 75 - 90 Hz vertical refresh. The horizontal scan frequency then is :
@800 x 600:
600 lines x 75Hz vert. = 45,000 Hz hor. freq.
@1024 x 768:
768 lines x 75Hz vert. = 57,600 Hz hor. freq.
The actual horizontal frequency for the VGA output is usually about 5% higher than these values, because there are more lines that don't have any visual information, e.g. only 600 of 630 actual lines are used to display the computer image.
What you can try is to lower the vertical frequency in your computer display properties. Most graphics adapter's software gives several options. For the 800 x 600, a refresh of 60 Hz might work. For the higher resolutions, you may be able to choose an interlaced frequency.
It also may be that you have to hit the right horizontal and vertical frequencies 'right on the nose' for your particular TV. It would be very nice if the manufacturers would recognize the potential benefit in being able to display computers on the HDTV sets and come up with the proper *.inf files for the monitor type, allowing to select the monitor in the display properties.
Most likely, as you already have discovered, the HDTV's display isn't quite good enough to review spreadsheets. Great for games though!

Michael,

I you're right about getting the proper vertical scan
rate in order to display the higher resolutions on
an HDTV. There is a piece of software called
PowerStrip available at www.entechtaiwan.com which
allows control of vertical and horizontal refresh
rates. The problem is that most current video cards
don't allow the horizontal refresh rate to be lowered
to the levels required to display higher resolutions
(800 x 600 and higher). An exception seems to be the
Matrox G400 video card. I've discoverd that people are
using this card to make HTPC's (Home Theatre Personal
Computers) ( I didn't even know there was such a thing until last week)! which have DVD output resolutions
which exceed progressive scan DVD players. There are some VERY interesting posts on these subjects in the
HDTV forum and HTPC forum at www.avsforum.com . Daniel,
how about starting an HTPC forum here!!

Alex

There is also software (such as YxY) that lets you control aspect ratio and increase the resolution of non-anamorphic DVD's. See the links over at avsforum that Alex mentioned.