[Pennarin]

Hi there,

This may be somehwat out of range of this forum, so let me know if it's the case.

I'll be buying a 24" LCD HD-ready monitor with the following connectors: DVI, HDMI, VGA, component video, composite video, s-video, and USB.

HDMI marries video AND audio, and my Xbox 360 is compatible with HDMI cabling...but how can I get my computer to output HD-quality video AND sound from, say, a DVD?

The Xbox has an HDMI port...but what PC component also has a HDMI port?

I'm terribly confused, as you can read.

Also, another important note....what's the deal with computer HD DVD players? Aren't all computer DVD players able to output an HD signal? Aren't DVDs already encoded in HD? What's the usefulness of HD DVDs then? Wikipedia is not helping on this.

 

[grawk]

Just use a dvi->hdmi cable, it works great. Doesn't cover audio tho, you'd need to run an optical line for that part.

 

[Pennarin]

So as long as my video card does DVI-D or DVI-I, I can use a special cable to connect the card to the HDMI connector on the monitor. Great.

The audio, in the case, would simply come out of the sound card and into the speaker setup?

 

[MontyPythizzle]

DVI-D is needed if using an HD-DVD or Blu-Ray player, and if doing that you will need an HDCP card anyway.

 

[infinitesymphony]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pennarin /img/forum/go_quote.gif I'll be buying a 24" LCD HD-ready monitor with the following connectors: DVI, HDMI, VGA, component video, composite video, s-video, and USB. HDMI marries video AND audio, and my Xbox 360 is compatible with HDMI cabling...but how can I get my computer to output HD-quality video AND sound from, say, a DVD? The Xbox has an HDMI port...but what PC component also has a HDMI port? I'm terribly confused, as you can read.

What exactly are you trying to do? Where do you want the Xbox 360's audio and video to go? For example, video to the monitor, audio to computer speakers.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pennarin Also, another important note....what's the deal with computer HD DVD players? Aren't all computer DVD players able to output an HD signal? Aren't DVDs already encoded in HD? What's the usefulness of HD DVDs then? Wikipedia is not helping on this.

Computers can output a high definition signal as long as the signal is in a format that the computer understands. HD-DVD and Blu-Ray are new formats that have even higher resolution and more storage capacity than regular DVDs. However, there are no software decoders for these new formats, hence the need to buy a piece of hardware.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pennarin /img/forum/go_quote.gif So as long as my video card does DVI-D or DVI-I, I can use a special cable to connect the card to the HDMI connector on the monitor. Great. The audio, in the case, would simply come out of the sound card and into the speaker setup?

No, because the audio doesn't have a way to get to the computer, unless the monitor has some kind of line output.

--------

Here's what you'll probably want to do:

Connect your computer to the monitor via DVI. Connect the Xbox 360 to the monitor via HDMI. Connect the Xbox 360's optical output to your sound card if your sound card has an optical input. If not, connect the Xbox 360's left and right RCA outputs to your sound card's line input via a Y-cable adapter (two female RCA to one 1/8" stereo).

 

[Pennarin]

Connect the Xbox 360 to the monitor via HDMI. Connect the Xbox 360's optical output to your sound card if your sound card has an optical input. If not, connect the Xbox 360's left and right RCA outputs to your sound card's line input via a Y-cable adapter (two female RCA to one 1/8" stereo).

My monitor has a headphone jack, so I can use headphones running directly from the HDMI signal as received by the monitor. With portable DAC/amp between the headphones and that headphone jack, I should get great sound for the Xbox games.

If I'm not using the headphones...then I would need to do the setup you're describing, running both the Xbox and the computer at the same time, Xbox providing HDMI video signal to the monitor, and then regular cabling linking Xbox to computer sound card and thus to computer speakers.

The AV-710 has 4 line outs & digital optical output. Would this be ok?

Computers can output a high definition signal as long as the signal is in a format that the computer understands. HD-DVD and Blu-Ray are new formats that have even higher resolution and more storage capacity than regular DVDs. However, there are no software decoders for these new formats, hence the need to buy a piece of hardware.

You're saying HD-DVD is even higher resolution than normal DVDs? Sure...but my question was: Aren't regular DVDs already encoded in HD? Do I need this "special piece of hardware" to play the HD content out of regualr DVDs, on my computer?

 

[infinitesymphony]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pennarin /img/forum/go_quote.gif My monitor has a headphone jack, so I can use headphones running directly from the HDMI signal as received by the monitor. With portable DAC/amp between the headphones and that headphone jack, I should get great sound for the Xbox games.

No... The sound quality of a monitor's headphone output jack is almost guaranteed to be noisy and polluted. You can't stick a DAC in the signal path because the signal is already analog by the time it reaches that jack, and a headphone amplifier will only amplify the signal it's given; a signal which will have been significantly degraded by the monitor's own headphone amplifier.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pennarin The AV-710 has 4 line outs & digital optical output. Would this be ok?

Any sound card will work for output purposes, but the AV-710 fares no better on the input department; it has a line input, but no optical input. So yes, it will work, but only with analog input.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pennarin You're saying HD-DVD is even higher resolution than normal DVDs? Sure...but my question was: Aren't regular DVDs already encoded in HD? Do I need this "special piece of hardware" to play the HD content out of regualr DVDs, on my computer?

No, DVDs are not HD. High definition implies 720p or higher, and the limitation for DVDs is 480p. You don't need any special hardware to play regular DVDs on your computer, though that wasn't always the case. DVD drives used to be rare, and when they first came out, computers weren't fast enough to decode DVDs on their own, so they needed a separate internal decoder card.

Now DVD drives are widespread and computers have evolved; practically every media player has a solution for software decoding of DVDs, including Windows Media Player.

What I meant by my initial response is that you can play HD content on a computer, but only if you have special hardware (in the case of HD-DVD and Blu-Ray), or if the content is stored in a computer-only encoding format like H.264 (from Apple) or WMV HD (from Microsoft). Some movies and trailers have been released this way, for example Terminator 2: Judgment Day [Extreme DVD Edition], though this requires installation of a separate media player to decrypt the movie; the original file has been split and encrypted to prevent people from easily copying and distributing it.

 

[MrKazador]

...but how can I get my computer to output HD-quality video AND sound from, say, a DVD?
You wont be able to get HD quality from a dvd, you can get NEAR HD quality by upscaling/sharpening/denoise. Visit AvsForum for more information.

The Xbox has an HDMI port...but what PC component also has a HDMI port?
Some new VideoCards from ATI offer an HDMI output. It can passthrough High Definition video BUT the audio is limited to PCM/AC3/DTS, sorry, no High Def audio here.

Also, another important note....what's the deal with computer HD DVD players? Aren't all computer DVD players able to output an HD signal? Aren't DVDs already encoded in HD? What's the usefulness of HD DVDs then? Wikipedia is not helping on this.
Dvd's are NOT in HD, they may be mastered from a High Definition source but not HD. Hd-Dvds and Bluray discs are in HD 1920x1080p. Dvd's are in SD 720x480p(576p in PAL land)