Re: HDTV Wonder Discussion
Pitseleh said:
Cable in the wall --> Cable Box HDTV reciever --> all in wonder hdtv --> computer.
right?
Wrong.
But close.
First, HDTV is really a consumer electronics term. Your PC display is really "Super-HDTV" capable already. A resolution of 1600x1200 at 95hz is attainable by most current video cards and monitors (LCDs are usually 1280x1024 until they are bigger than 19"), and even just 1280x1024 essentially matches 1080 resolution, exceeding it in refresh rate because your PC is not interlaced, but rather progressive scan. 1280x1024 60hz on a PC pretty much matches 1080p, and only a few 1080p HDTVs are even available. 1280x1024 at 95hz can thus easily display 1080i or 1080p.
Set your PC at 1600x1200 95hz and your display is well beyond the best HDTV content available. And your video card may even have a choice of resolutions like 1280x1080 to match the HDTV line count. If not, applications like Powerchute can create custom resolutions.
Then, of course, is the necessity to get HDTV content in its raw TS format into the PC in the first place. Even most DVDs are only 480i/p or 720i/p at best, so even 1024x768 resolution exceeds the DVD resolution and the DVD must be upscaled to fill the screen. (simplified, as there are various 4:3 vs. 16:9 proportioning issues)
And not all HDTV broadcasters send 1080i. Some send 720i/p. And some send 16:9 while others send 4:3. While your Digital STB can tune all these, there is no guarantee that this is what is sent to the television, as that relies on the outputs available on the STB and the inputs available on the TV and ultimately, the interoperability and compatability of both together.
Pretty complicated to figure out the best way to fill a TV screen proportionally while simultaneously scaling the picture to match the best resolution of the display.
And like Laptops, non-CRT HDTVs (LCD, DLP, Plasma) have a defined resolution based upon the exact number of pixels on the screen in rows and columns, so you always want to have the TV working at that optimum resolution, scaling the data to fit.
With CRTs, it's much easier to smoothly display various resolutions, as while one may be called "optimum", the display of others is not so detrimental to the appearance. This is why your CRT Monitor looks smooth from 640x480 all the way to its maximum while a 1280x1024 LCD looks blocky at any reduced resolution.
So, as long as you have a good video card and monitor (LCD or CRT) of at least 1280x1024, your PC can display HDTV quite well so long as you have the appropriate playback app.
Now, if you use your PC to supply the signal to a HDTV, your video card needs to be able to output a resolution and refresh the TV can accomodate. If by Svideo, Composite or even VGA, it's an analog signal and while VGA may exceed the digital source resolution, it is not Digital HDTV, it is digital transcoded to analog and upscaled to fill the screen.
If your video card has a DVI-Out port, it is sending a digital signal to the HDTV. Obviously, this is preferable, but it still requires that your video card output a signal that is compatible with what the HDTV can accept.
Set Top Boxes (STBs) also vary in how they connect to the HDTV. Recall that no matter how you slice it, Composite and SVideo are analog signals. DVI and FireWire are digital.
According to the reviews, the dongle connection on HDTVWonder supports just SVideo and Composite, so there is no reason to input your STB Output into the HDTV Wonder if you have any other SVideo or Composite input like on a regular TV Capture or multimedia video card like an ATI.
Basically, what comes out of your STB isn't HDTV any more...it's analog (Unless you output digital video on FireWire).
So if you have digital cable or Dish/DTV already, there is no reason to get a HDTV Wonder as all it will do for $200 + antenna is tune the local OTA HDTV channels you already get on Cable/Sat. That's a pretty expensive capture card.
There is no need to "tune" on the PC like you do when you set a TV on Ch3 or Ch4 and tune with the VCR, thus the tuning features of the HDTVWonder are redundant.
What you need is simply video-in on the PC which can be obtained for $40 with a simple capture card or an integrated solution like an AIW.
Cable in wall
Digital CATV STB
-firewire out to PC firewire delivers digital signal
-Composite or SVideo out to PC Composite or SVideo in delivers Analog TV
Now when the HDTV card makers create Digital Cable Ready HDTV Tuners, you will plug the cable from the wall straight to the PC and let the card replace the STB. Just like you can do with analog TV and a tuner card or AIW right now.
At this point, it will also be necessary to have some sort of device that allows the descrambling of encrypted Digital channels, which for new DCReady televisions is called CableCARD (by Cable Labs, though individual manufacturers or cable companies may have their own brand name for the technology)
Make sense?
It's confusing...don't be embarassed. Too many of the terms being used are ambiguous or have multiple meanings depending upon how they are used and what equipment is being referred to.
The hardest thing is bridging the concept between the worlds of computers and consumer electronics.
And finally, the best results are obtained by using the most capable equipment to keep the signal in its original Digital format as long as possible, minimizing A-D and D-A conversions or any scaling of the data.
Fun, huh?