Robert-The-Rambler
07-15-2006, 07:09 PM
I discovered something incredible while playing around with the Catalyst Control Center for my ATI Radeon 1600XT Crossfire setup.
It all started when I got the itch to upconvert 480p DVDs to 1080i. I even bought one of those upconverter DVD players and found to my dismay that the upconverson process was only capable through the all digital HDMI connection format. I refused to give up. I bought a HDMI to DVI connector and then a DVI to VGA connector. In connecting to my projector (Infocus X1) it simply did not work at all. The conversion from digital to analog was not allowed. Due to copyright protection we are not able to see DVDs in 720p, 1080i, or 1080p(That includes HDDVDS) via analog connection from home console players.(VGA or Component Video) Again I did not give up!!!!!
I moved to the PC DVD realm that I had abandoned long ago. The TV Out capabilities of recent ATI video cards are spectactular. In fact I have 3 different sources attached to my PC; a projector via VGA, a HDTV via Component Video, and a VGA/DVI CRT Monitor. I remembered that DVDs could be viewed at any desktop resolution in wonderful clarity. In fact my monitor was capable of 1920 * 1440 so I watched a movie at that res for a few minutes on my 21' monitor. I thought it looked great but was way to small for real movie watching.
I then tried my projector at 1080i and was not impressed. (At about 75" widescreen) For those of you who do not know 1080i is 1920 * 1080 at 30hz. It tends to flicker and the problem with my projector was that it was not capable of true 1080i anyway. I gave up on that quickly. I dreamed of a true 1080p projector........
Next up was my rarely used 38" Widescreen HDTV. It is a dying breed. It is virtually a huge CRT monitor that weighs over 200lbs. I connected the component video cables and set the resolution to 1080i and was impressed with the overall picture. I watched several movies before I reached my fateful decision. Catalyst Control Center has options for controlling both resolution and refesh rate. It was a night like many other. I had just watched a movie and it was getting quite late. The movie just had ended. I was looking at a somewhat blurry image on my HDTV compared to my monitor. I saw 1920 * 1080 at 30hz on the screen when I went into Catalyst Control Center. I wondered what might happen if I change that 30hz to 60hz. Would my TV blow up? Well to my amazement it displayed a beautiful image with higher refresh rate and no flicker!!!!! I then went ape and set the resolution to 1920 * 1440 and it looked even better!!!! Somehow someway my old HDTV(RCAF38310) is more than I ever hoped for. I does the same high resolution as my "little" PC monitor.
A light bulb flashed above my head......
Naturally I tried many of my games with mixed results. While the image is beautiful and huge I can't read the text on many of the games because it is too small. Farcry was one that looks amazing yet at that high res it is a little slow at 1920 * 1440. No One Lives Forever 2 looked great with properly scaled big text easily legible at 1920 * 1440. Even Halo at 1600 * 1200 displayed and looked wonderful.
So I implore others with HDTVs to see what they are capable of by using their PCs and I ask kindly for suggestions of games with BIG BOLD TEXT that might be legible at very high resolutions from 15 feet away.
And I think we should all flip a virtual bird to HDMI. I like my audio and video separated thank you very much. <>__<>
It all started when I got the itch to upconvert 480p DVDs to 1080i. I even bought one of those upconverter DVD players and found to my dismay that the upconverson process was only capable through the all digital HDMI connection format. I refused to give up. I bought a HDMI to DVI connector and then a DVI to VGA connector. In connecting to my projector (Infocus X1) it simply did not work at all. The conversion from digital to analog was not allowed. Due to copyright protection we are not able to see DVDs in 720p, 1080i, or 1080p(That includes HDDVDS) via analog connection from home console players.(VGA or Component Video) Again I did not give up!!!!!
I moved to the PC DVD realm that I had abandoned long ago. The TV Out capabilities of recent ATI video cards are spectactular. In fact I have 3 different sources attached to my PC; a projector via VGA, a HDTV via Component Video, and a VGA/DVI CRT Monitor. I remembered that DVDs could be viewed at any desktop resolution in wonderful clarity. In fact my monitor was capable of 1920 * 1440 so I watched a movie at that res for a few minutes on my 21' monitor. I thought it looked great but was way to small for real movie watching.
I then tried my projector at 1080i and was not impressed. (At about 75" widescreen) For those of you who do not know 1080i is 1920 * 1080 at 30hz. It tends to flicker and the problem with my projector was that it was not capable of true 1080i anyway. I gave up on that quickly. I dreamed of a true 1080p projector........
Next up was my rarely used 38" Widescreen HDTV. It is a dying breed. It is virtually a huge CRT monitor that weighs over 200lbs. I connected the component video cables and set the resolution to 1080i and was impressed with the overall picture. I watched several movies before I reached my fateful decision. Catalyst Control Center has options for controlling both resolution and refesh rate. It was a night like many other. I had just watched a movie and it was getting quite late. The movie just had ended. I was looking at a somewhat blurry image on my HDTV compared to my monitor. I saw 1920 * 1080 at 30hz on the screen when I went into Catalyst Control Center. I wondered what might happen if I change that 30hz to 60hz. Would my TV blow up? Well to my amazement it displayed a beautiful image with higher refresh rate and no flicker!!!!! I then went ape and set the resolution to 1920 * 1440 and it looked even better!!!! Somehow someway my old HDTV(RCAF38310) is more than I ever hoped for. I does the same high resolution as my "little" PC monitor.
A light bulb flashed above my head......
Naturally I tried many of my games with mixed results. While the image is beautiful and huge I can't read the text on many of the games because it is too small. Farcry was one that looks amazing yet at that high res it is a little slow at 1920 * 1440. No One Lives Forever 2 looked great with properly scaled big text easily legible at 1920 * 1440. Even Halo at 1600 * 1200 displayed and looked wonderful.
So I implore others with HDTVs to see what they are capable of by using their PCs and I ask kindly for suggestions of games with BIG BOLD TEXT that might be legible at very high resolutions from 15 feet away.
And I think we should all flip a virtual bird to HDMI. I like my audio and video separated thank you very much. <>__<>