to HDMI or not to HDMI that is the question (1 Viewer)

[evilness]

Currently using MP on a MSI megaPC 180 (bit noisy) on an old CRT tv.

Now ive recently bought a Philips 32PF9541 Cineos, and now it think its time say goodbye to my old megapc and upgrade to a HD capable system.

However would it hold any serious advantages to switch to HDMI or would a DVI->HDMI plug bring me the same kind of atvantage.

And ifso what kind of HDMI options are there ive seen mainboards with a HDMI port on, ive seen some GFX cards with a HDMI port but they all seem to have some heat problems.

just to be clear i am going to upgrade to a fully new system only hardware thats going to make it into my new system is the HDD.

 

[OleJ]

Cable quality-wise there is no difference whether you run HDMI-HDMI or DVI-HDMI or DVI-DVI

But some TVs aren't that keen on HDMI and standard resolutions.

With my Samsung I've had some problems when using DVI-HDMI because the TV reports some weird resolution sizes back to my videocard resulting in terrible pixelmapping. Since my TV doesn't have DVI I run VGA (D-SUB) and 1:1 pixelmapping, which means that text and so forth is razor sharp, crisp, clean and nice. And picture quality can't get better

I would recommend you look at a Radeon HD2400. You can get these passively cooled and they even support DVI-HDMI including audio!! Yeah, I said: Including audio. Which means that you only need one cable to TV
And IIRC the HD2xxx series also supports HD decoding and they're even pretty cheap.

Cheers!

 

[Forgotten Illustrator]

The main difference between DVI and HDMI is that DVI is video information only but HDMI is/can be video and audio. Also DVI can communicate in either analog Red/Blue/Green (RGB) or digital RGB.

As in regards to quality of image between the two it would be more about how your TV processes them because they are telling the TV to do the same thing, just in a different “language”.

Max resolution for DVI is 2560 × 1600 @ 60 Hz (dual mode)
Max resolution for HDMI is 1920×1080 (Version 1), 2560x1600 (version 1.3)

 

[cheezey]

they even support DVI-HDMI including audio!! Yeah, I said: Including audio. Which means that you only need one cable to TV

They support audio so long as you can get your hands on an ATI DVI-HDMI dongle, not a problem in the US or CA as ATI sell them through their online store, however a bit harder in the EU, I got mine from ebay.

 

[mrkaras]

As in regards to quality of image between the two it would be more about how your TV processes them because they are telling the TV to do the same thing, just in a different “language”.

I believe that as far as the digital video part goes, the signal is actually identical, witch make is all the more disgusting that any TV will not accept it but it happens. I have a similar samsung TV to OleJ and mine at lease is marked on the back "DVI/HDMI" but yet it will distort HDMI signals from a PC (DVI -> HDMI) where as VGA works better.