Plasma and DVI

[kidslice]

Anyone out there with a Plasm TV? What formats does the TV support over the DVI link?

I heard that they only support PC scan rates (i.e. VGA, XVGA, etc) and not video scan rates (i.e. 1080i, 720p, etc).

[57U]

Most plasmas display 720P (actually 768P) only. They don't do 1080i because they don't have that many pixels, but 720P is thought to be "better" by most people anyway. All formats are converted to 768P (480i, 480P, 720P, 1080i).

Careful, some "cheap" plasma sets only do 480P, saying that they "accept" 1080i, 720P, but then downconvert to 480P.

[miahallen]

Most any plasma set with a DVI input (strickly digital) will also have a component video (CV) input (analouge) as well. Because plasma displays have a physical predetermined number of pixels, it will only display one resoloution (res).

So, lets say you have a set top box (STB) with both CV and DVI output:

1) If you connect with the CV, your signal will come into the STB as a digital bitstream, runs through a digital to analouge converter (DAC) is output to the display, then run through an analouge to digital converter (ADC) before being ready to be scaled and displayed (more on scaling later).

2) If you connect with the DVI, your signal still comes into STB as a digital bitstream, but since the DVI connection is made for the digital signal, it eliminates the need for both the DAC and ADC converstions. This keep a more pure signal for the scaler and your final image will be more accurate (although a minimal difference).

The scaler takes care of changing the the input resolution, to the native (physical) res of the display, but it will work the same way with either input (CV or DVI) type, and will convert any input res (480i, 480p, 540p, 720p, 1080i).

As far as using a computer DVI output, just set the output res to as close as possible to the native res of the display, this will keep the image as clean as possible by bypassing the scaler.

MIAH