I want to watch movies from my computer on my LCD Tv

[Smith]

I want to grab a new video card first, one that can put out at least a 720P signal.

What am I looking at?

[Artemis]

It depends on the other requirements for your PC as well, but to watch movies on your LCD TV as well as the computer you are best to get a Dual Link DVI card or even better a card which has an HDMI output. The other thing which will help in video performance is having a late generation NVidia card which supports PureVideoHD or an HD ATi card since these have onboard decoding for HiDef codecs.

[Detale]

If your system is pretty recent you can get a ATI HD card in the 3000's (http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=2010380048%201305520549%20106792462&bop=And&Order=PRICE) for as cheap as $30 and it will work fine. The thing to look out for is if it comes with an HDMI adapter if not you have to spend the extra $5. I have the older version of this card ASUS AH3650 SILENT (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121260) and I play 1080p on my 42" LCD. Has worked like a charm for months now. This is my HTPC (http://filesharingtalk.com/vb3/f-hardware-24/t-advice-htpc-build-300129/?&highlight=HTPC) BTW ;)

[Artemis]

so did you get the Thermaltake case with the touchscreen Detale ?
This is my home theatre setup :
http://i33.tinypic.com/sewz0l.jpg

It is a Shuttle ST20G5 as the HTPC with a Gigabyte 8600GT silent Dual Link DVI card this outputs to the Samsung LCD and a Sony VA10W projector both are connected via DVI to HDMI cables and since both have the same resolution the output is simply cloned for each source.

[Detale]

Yeah I did get it. Very well built case pricey though. I'll take a pic of my setup in the morning, bit of a mess right now. How does it look through the projector? I'v read lots of people had trouble using them from DVI sources?

[kooftspc11]

I'll take a pic of my setup in the morning, bit of a mess right now


I highly doubt that you dashing man you

[Detale]

Yeah I'm dashing, but my 3 kids under 4yr old are not. My middle one always pulls the volume knob off of it and I have to spend 20 min looking for it. He's 20 months old BTW so I can't even beat him....yet :P

[Artemis]

http://i38.tinypic.com/157c960.jpg


But back to more serious subjects, the projector works excellently via DVI-HDMI, the thing alot of people don't do is purchase decent cables, and something else that they don't realise is that there is a maximum length that the signal can be transmitted before you need a repeater. With DVI signals the max distance is 10m if you are going to have the projector any further away then you either need a cable with a built in booster or a signal booster & 2 x cables.
The contrast is lower on the projector than the LCD TV but I can forgive that sitting there watching it all in widescreen, for a decent movie it's the only way to fly unless you have a very big TV and since this is a late model Bravia projector it has 3:2 overscanning which means that it compensates for movement.

[Skiz]

I want to grab a new video card first, one that can put out at least a 720P signal.

What am I looking at?

So far the comments are with the assumption that your PC is close to your TV and you'll just be running a wire, though my first impression was that it is not. Where is your TV in relation to your PC? Are you asking what the best way is to directly connect the two or just how to watch downloaded movies on your TV?

I have my PC in the 2nd bedroom of my apartment (study) and my TV's are in the living room and bedroom. Each has a DVD player with a USB port. I put movies on a USB drive and plug it into the DVD player in order to watch them on the TV.

[Detale]

I still have my DVD player hooked up with the USB also. It is arguably one of the easiest ways to do it.

[tesco]

I want to grab a new video card first, one that can put out at least a 720P signal.

What am I looking at?
Any vid card with component or hdmi output will give you 1080p or higher. Not that any tv would accept anything higher...

I use component with mine because the tv is more than 20 ft from my computer (well, 20ft of hidden wire). If I were to use HDMI it would be too expensive for the wire to hook it up.
The component gives a perfect picture I honestly don't see any difference between using it or using HDMI. HDMI is just the convenience of having less cables to plug in (or see if you're running it across your floor).

Also keep in mind you could always just use a DVI to HDMI adaptor and then you can use ANY vid card that has DVI output...
You don't get sound through DVI though so you'd need to run a seperate cable for that.
(with HDMI you can get sound through the same cable but I don't know if any vid cards actually output sound through it...probably only video (I don't know for sure).

[Artemis]

I want to grab a new video card first, one that can put out at least a 720P signal.

What am I looking at?
Any vid card with component or hdmi output will give you 1080p or higher. Not that any tv would accept anything higher...

I use component with mine because the tv is more than 20 ft from my computer (well, 20ft of hidden wire). If I were to use HDMI it would be too expensive for the wire to hook it up.
The component gives a perfect picture I honestly don't see any difference between using it or using HDMI. HDMI is just the convenience of having less cables to plug in (or see if you're running it across your floor).

Also keep in mind you could always just use a DVI to HDMI adaptor and then you can use ANY vid card that has DVI output...
You don't get sound through DVI though so you'd need to run a seperate cable for that.
(with HDMI you can get sound through the same cable but I don't know if any vid cards actually output sound through it...probably only video (I don't know for sure).
The newer graphics cards with HDMI connectors on then have sound support I am building a PC for a friend right now that has a Palit NV9500GT card with HDMI out and it has the audio connectors to go to the mainboard.