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Confused About Resolution (Breakout Cables - S-Video - DVD)

 
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Joemarzen




Joined: 23 Mar 2007
Posts: 66
Location: Edgerton, Wi (Near Madison)


PostLink    Posted: Wed Jun 20, 2007 6:40 am    Post subject: Confused About Resolution (Breakout Cables - S-Video - DVD) Reply with quote


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So if I use VGA breakout cables with my D50Q will I see a noticeable difference in picture quality from the S-Video cable I have my DVD player hooked up with currently?

I am a little confused with all the resolutions.

From what I understand, S-video cable can transmit a maximum of 640x480, but with the breakout cable Ill be able to get full resolution out of a DVD, which is 720x480.

Eighty lines of resolution doesn't seem like it will be a big difference. Is this the correct way to judge the topic?

Is it worth 35 dollars to upgrade to breakout cables? It will make a big difference when I get a HD-DVD drive for my computer, right?

Also, my projector has an internal line doubler, should that effect my thinking?

Thanks for any help,

Joe
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redcorvette_85




Joined: 09 Apr 2006
Posts: 145
Location: Bothell, Washington


PostLink    Posted: Wed Jun 20, 2007 7:08 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

A little more info would be helpful, such as what dvd player you have, if you are using an upscaling player or a htcp. The reason I ask is most standard dvd players do not have vga outputs. Anyway with you line doubler running off you s video port you should be getting 480p projected from the D50, thats the max for standard dvd players. If your using a computer(htpc) for dvds then you can upscale your movies to 1080i and would need a breakout cable for that and would definitely see an improvement doing it that way, same with a upscaling dvd player. Also your D50 has an internal transcoder so you can plug component cables straight into it with some cheap bnc to rca adapters and changing some settings in your menu. Post again if you have more questions
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Joemarzen




Joined: 23 Mar 2007
Posts: 66
Location: Edgerton, Wi (Near Madison)


PostLink    Posted: Wed Jun 20, 2007 7:27 am    Post subject: bnc Reply with quote

Well the DVD player is one of the cheapest models available so it doesn't have any special features.

If I bought the breakout cable it would be for a PC so, I guess that answers my question.

I would get a much better picture playing DVD's via my PC and breakout cables, than I do with my cheap-o DVD player and a S-Video cable. If I am understanding you correctly.

Do they sell VGA breakout cables at stores - like Best Buy or Radio Shack - or is that the sort of thing you have to buy on-line?

What would the implications of a HD-DVD drive be?

Thanks for your help
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redcorvette_85




Joined: 09 Apr 2006
Posts: 145
Location: Bothell, Washington


PostLink    Posted: Wed Jun 20, 2007 7:36 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

You may be able to get a break out cable at a specialty electronics store or a computer store, bnc breakout cables used to be used on older monitors, maybe check out one of the local used computer stores. It may be difficult to find one locally, I am not sure I have just always ordered them online. I know curt sells some nice ones here for $25 bucks each. As far as hd-dvd drives I am guessing here because I have never dealt with one through a computer, but I would think those would have the hdcp restriction on them so you could only use them with the dvi out to a hdcp stripper like the hdfury, which you can order here also in the 3rd party section. If you have an xbox 360, you can avoid that problem by buying the add on hd-dvd player and the vga out cable, the main problem with the 360 is it doesn't output lossless audio.
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Heywood Jablome




Joined: 12 Mar 2006
Posts: 1547



PostLink    Posted: Wed Jun 20, 2007 12:07 pm    Post subject: Re: bnc Reply with quote

Joemarzen wrote:

I would get a much better picture playing DVD's via my PC and breakout cables, than I do with my cheap-o DVD player and a S-Video cable. If I am understanding you correctly.


YES! A software DVD player on a PC will de-interlace and scale the image to the PCs resolution. VGA-5BNC also has the benefit of separating color from sync, so the color saturation/fidelity should also improve over S-Video.

Joemarzen wrote:

What would the implications of a HD-DVD drive be?

Thanks for your help


Don't know from the software side, but if you set the PCs output for 1080i you can get the image with no scaling artifacts.

_________________
"Those countries which lag behind in industry, in the application of mechanics and technical chemistry, in the careful selection and utilization of natural products, where the respect for such activities does not permeate all classes of society, will unfailingly decline in prosperity. They will sink faster when neighbor states, with an energetic exchange between science and industry, go forward with renewed vitality."
-- Baron Alexander von Humboldt: 1769-1859
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ecrabb
Forum Moderator



Joined: 13 Mar 2006
Posts: 15909
Location: Utah

TV/Projector: JVC RS40, Epson 5010


PostLink    Posted: Wed Jun 20, 2007 2:47 pm    Post subject: Re: bnc Reply with quote

Heywood Jablome wrote:
Don't know from the software side, but if you set the PCs output for 1080i you can get the image with no scaling artifacts.

Huh? 1080i isn't at all an even multiple of DVD. If you want to scale DVD without any scaling artifacts, you have to use 720x480 as your starting point (assuming you're in NTSC-land) if you're scaling in the digital domain. So, 1440x960 if you wanted to simply do 2x scaling... but, that's probably not a good match at all for a D50.

OP, svideo is not 640x480. Analog s-video is around 420 lines or so... so approximately 420x480. Plus, that 480 is *interlaced* which should look pretty nasty if your D50 is set up decent.

With the HTPC, you can run 720x480 - that's 480 *progressive*, or by playing with your projector and the HTPC scale to some other resolution that's closer to your particular machine's sweet spot. Could be 1080i, could be 600p... whatever looks best.

Personally, though - with a D50, I'm not sure the HTPC would be worth the hassle just to get custom res/refresh... at least compared to a decent 480p DVD player (either with RGB out, or with a transcoder.)

I guess if you already have a computer to use as an HTPC and you don't mind screwing around with video drivers, sound card drivers, etc. it might be OK. I've just been fighting getting the sound to output correctly over SPDIF for weeks, and I'm starting to wonder whether it's worth it.

SC
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garyfritz




Joined: 08 Apr 2006
Posts: 12021
Location: Fort Collins, CO


PostLink    Posted: Wed Jun 20, 2007 3:41 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

What is it about S-video that limits it to 420i or whatever? Is it just spec'd to be a crap cable and bandwidth-limited?
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Heywood Jablome




Joined: 12 Mar 2006
Posts: 1547



PostLink    Posted: Wed Jun 20, 2007 5:06 pm    Post subject: Re: bnc Reply with quote

ecrabb wrote:
Heywood Jablome wrote:
Don't know from the software side, but if you set the PCs output for 1080i you can get the image with no scaling artifacts.

Huh? 1080i isn't at all an even multiple of DVD.

SC


Quoted directly above my "no scaling artifacts" statement was the OPs follow-on question regarding HD-DVD.

_________________
"Those countries which lag behind in industry, in the application of mechanics and technical chemistry, in the careful selection and utilization of natural products, where the respect for such activities does not permeate all classes of society, will unfailingly decline in prosperity. They will sink faster when neighbor states, with an energetic exchange between science and industry, go forward with renewed vitality."
-- Baron Alexander von Humboldt: 1769-1859
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ecrabb
Forum Moderator



Joined: 13 Mar 2006
Posts: 15909
Location: Utah

TV/Projector: JVC RS40, Epson 5010


PostLink    Posted: Wed Jun 20, 2007 6:58 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Ooops... sorry. I missed the HD-DVD reference after several DVD references.

SC
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ecrabb
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Joined: 13 Mar 2006
Posts: 15909
Location: Utah

TV/Projector: JVC RS40, Epson 5010


PostLink    Posted: Wed Jun 20, 2007 7:32 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

garyfritz wrote:
What is it about S-video that limits it to 420i or whatever? Is it just spec'd to be a crap cable and bandwidth-limited?

NTSC - whether composite, s-video, or component - is 480i, or 480 lines high active picture area.

The 420 I was talking about is horizontal resolution. They used to say, "lines of horizontal resolution per picture height" or something like that.

It isn't that s-video is crap. Depending on the source, s-video is almost always better than composite, which is better than RF-modulated composite. With s-video, the chroma component is separate from the lumnanice component of the signal. Because of that, there was high bandwidth available for color information.

I can't remember the details, but I think composite was limited to something like a whopping 80 lines of resolution for the color component (width), while s-video pumped that up to 120 or something. It's been awhile since I read up on that stuff. Since HD came along, my SD knowledge has gotten really fuzzy.

Generally, until component came along, Y/C (s-video) was as good as NTSC got for consumer gear. You just had to be careful if the cable got very long. We're just all really jaded (and lucky!) now with RGB and component HD.

SC
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Joemarzen




Joined: 23 Mar 2007
Posts: 66
Location: Edgerton, Wi (Near Madison)


PostLink    Posted: Thu Jun 21, 2007 6:53 am    Post subject: Choosing a Resolution Reply with quote

So I got a breakout cable today and got everything up and running. I am not sure what resolution I should set the computer to though.

What factors should I consider?

I think my computer is plenty fast, so that shouldn't be any sort of problem. I've had it hooked up with s-video plenty of times and never had a problem anyway.

Right now it's set at 1280x1024 because that's what it was on the monitor. Is that a reasonable resolution?

Thanks again,

Joe

Side question, other then some problems with my blue tube I think the picture on the D50 looks fantastic - I guess I just don't know any better. But at some point my blue tube is going to become unacceptable. Is it worth replacing it? From what I've gathered it will cost upwards of six hundred dollars to do so. Would it be better to buy a new system? What sort of price am I looking at? For something compatible to the D50 or perhaps a little better?
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Heywood Jablome




Joined: 12 Mar 2006
Posts: 1547



PostLink    Posted: Thu Jun 21, 2007 11:56 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

1024p 4:3 is probably too much bandwidth for that projector... If you go 16:9 then 1080i or 720p should match that PJs capabilities pretty well... If 4:3 than 768p or 600p would be better suited.

Basically you want to maximize image quality by not exceeding the bandwidth of the PJs' electronics... While the electronics may sync to 1024p, the image will be terribly soft. Try one of the lower resolutions and you should see a drastic increase in PQ.

_________________
"Those countries which lag behind in industry, in the application of mechanics and technical chemistry, in the careful selection and utilization of natural products, where the respect for such activities does not permeate all classes of society, will unfailingly decline in prosperity. They will sink faster when neighbor states, with an energetic exchange between science and industry, go forward with renewed vitality."
-- Baron Alexander von Humboldt: 1769-1859
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AnalogRocks
Forum Moderator



Joined: 08 Mar 2006
Posts: 26690
Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada

TV/Projector: Sony 1252Q, AMPRO 4000G


PostLink    Posted: Tue Jun 26, 2007 4:47 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Try 800x600 to start, or if you want 16x9 and you have the setting in your video card drivers try 1067 x 600. It won't stress your projector and will look nice once properly set up.
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oliverg




Joined: 15 May 2007
Posts: 800
Location: Melbourne, Australia

TV/Projector: Sony G90 X2 - Vidikron Vision 1


PostLink    Posted: Wed Jun 27, 2007 6:49 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

My DVD player displays our region 4 discs in 576p (PAL). I think it depends on your source material.

Kind regards

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Sonynut




Joined: 08 Aug 2006
Posts: 367
Location: Bradford,PA


PostLink    Posted: Wed Jun 27, 2007 9:17 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

What size are a D50's tubes compared to a 1272? I run 1280x1024 on my 1272(4:3), and widescreen movies just fit inside that with black bars at the top/bottom. Looks great to me, in fact my desktop at 1280x1024 is quite sharp and readable... anything above that gets soft.

Unless the D50 is inferior to the 1272, which doesn't make much sense, but I suppose is reasonable in the Sony world.
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REGNAD




Joined: 15 Oct 2006
Posts: 173
Location: RICHMOND VA


PostLink    Posted: Sat Aug 25, 2007 5:37 am    Post subject: Re: bnc Reply with quote

i was having issues with spdif and dts passing through. after about a year of screwing with it i reinstalled TT and low and behold my audio works perfect now.




ecrabb wrote:
Heywood Jablome wrote:
Don't know from the software side, but if you set the PCs output for 1080i you can get the image with no scaling artifacts.

Huh? 1080i isn't at all an even multiple of DVD. If you want to scale DVD without any scaling artifacts, you have to use 720x480 as your starting point (assuming you're in NTSC-land) if you're scaling in the digital domain. So, 1440x960 if you wanted to simply do 2x scaling... but, that's probably not a good match at all for a D50.

OP, svideo is not 640x480. Analog s-video is around 420 lines or so... so approximately 420x480. Plus, that 480 is *interlaced* which should look pretty nasty if your D50 is set up decent.

With the HTPC, you can run 720x480 - that's 480 *progressive*, or by playing with your projector and the HTPC scale to some other resolution that's closer to your particular machine's sweet spot. Could be 1080i, could be 600p... whatever looks best.

Personally, though - with a D50, I'm not sure the HTPC would be worth the hassle just to get custom res/refresh... at least compared to a decent 480p DVD player (either with RGB out, or with a transcoder.)

I guess if you already have a computer to use as an HTPC and you don't mind screwing around with video drivers, sound card drivers, etc. it might be OK. I've just been fighting getting the sound to output correctly over SPDIF for weeks, and I'm starting to wonder whether it's worth it.

SC

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REGNAD




Joined: 15 Oct 2006
Posts: 173
Location: RICHMOND VA


PostLink    Posted: Sat Aug 25, 2007 5:45 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

heres a shots of my 1252 @ 1184x 666. (pic compliment of Z-Photo)... mmmuuch better than s-vid.
ok, i was just looking for a reason to post new screen shot, im much hapier with PQ switching from 1280x720 to 1184x666.
shannon



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