Panasonic and PC's

johnbower

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Hi
What is the best way to connect my Dell pc to my Panasonic th42px70?
At the moment I am connected via vga from a low end graphics card 1024x768.
I am not too happy with the picture I am getting at the moment and was wondering would a new more powerful graphics card give me a better picture as at the moment my card will not allow many adjustments all I can do is change screen resolution. Would a better card help here?
Do I need a card at all or is it just codec’s that matter or does the speed of your processor etc make the difference.
I guess what I need to know is what the best set up to get the best out of my viewing experience.
 
I think (and am willing to be corrected here) that the issue is less with the performance of your graphics card or your PC, and more to do with the fact that your PC and your TV have different resolutions.
As an example, I have a TH46PZ85B and my normal setting for my Dell XPS laptop is 1400x900. It doesn't look great on the plasma. However, if I change the PC resolution to 1920x1080 then it's absolutely spot-on because it matches the resolution of the plasma. I'm doing this via a DVI to HDMI cable into the HDMI-3 socket, by the way, not using the PC input socket.
 
The best way of connecting a pc to panny is using dvi to hdmi. The vga port on the pannys doesnt support high resolutions so you cant get 1080p which is what your after.
 
1) Use native resolution of the panel
2) Use DVI-HDMI
3) Use ffdshow scaling

A more powerful GPU won't make a difference, however ATI seems to offer better picture quality for video.
 
What about connecting the PC to TV using vga to component adapter? Did any of you guys tried this option?
 
no point. Actually using 1024x768 over VGA to match the screen res is his best option.

What is it about the picture you're not happy with?
 
42PX70 has native resolution 1024x768. If your grafic card has a dvi then get a dvi-hdmi cable. If you have a nvidia gf card then set it to dual view and set native resolutions on your monitor and plasma.
You can also try buying a good vga cable and should work good with it too.
 
The PX70 won't accept 1024x768 over HDMI so it has to be VGA
 
It has been mentioned before that the PX70 isnt the best when using as a pc monitor, i dont think you can turn overscan off either.
 
Is this the same with the 42" PX80? :confused:

PX80 allows you to choose 1024x768 through hdmi. To me hdmi looked better than through vga.

You can set overscan to "off" so the image is the same size as the screen. It will allow you to choose 1280x768/1360x768/1920x1080 resolutions even though the panel is only 1024x768. The text at this resolution is not as sharp but is still very readable.

The only problem when using the PC through hdmi is if you turn the tv off by the front switch/mains while the PC is on and turn it back on again the freeview channels cannot be found until you either turn the PC off or take the hdmi lead out while the tv is on and put it back in again or by just using the remote to turn the tv to standby gets around this problem/quirk.
 
PX80 allows you to choose 1024x768 through hdmi. To me hdmi looked better than through vga.

You can set overscan to "off" so the image is the same size as the screen. It will allow you to choose 1280x768/1360x768/1920x1080 resolutions even though the panel is only 1024x768. The text at this resolution is not as sharp but is still very readable.

The only problem when using the PC through hdmi is if you turn the tv off by the front switch/mains while the PC is on and turn it back on again the freeview channels cannot be found until you either turn the PC off or take the hdmi lead out while the tv is on and put it back in again or by just using the remote to turn the tv to standby gets around this problem/quirk.

Thanks very much! So is it best to set the Pc desktop to the native panel resolution of 1024x768? Also - I have some 1080p .mkv files - Will they be downscaled by the PX80, or will it only show 720p files?
 
Thanks very much! So is it best to set the Pc desktop to the native panel resolution of 1024x768? Also - I have some 1080p .mkv files - Will they be downscaled by the PX80, or will it only show 720p files?

If you're outputting the panel res, they'll be downscaled by the media playing application but yes, if you send 1080p, the TV will scale it down to 1024x768
 
Hi everyone thanks for the replies:thumbsup:
At the moment I am going through vga but am not at all happy with the picture its kind of darker than normal and when playing 720p video it looks not so good compared with my sky hd. I just want to get my pc playing 720p as close to that I see on sky hd as possible.
When I was researching this set everyone on here was raving about the Panasonic and it was excellent on dvi to hdmi perfect etc my set is anything but. I am unable to adjust the picture using my graphics card and that is what I am wondering is the picture bad because:
A: I have no functions on my graphics card to change the picture whatsoever
B: I have a TV which will not work well with playing pc media files like 720p
C: my computer is not powerful enough to play 720p material to the fullest
D: Others have the px70 connected by dvi to hdmi and are loving it am I wrong or are they lying
I really just thought it would be easy to buy this plasma connect my pc and watch some 720p films but it's become a nightmare just don't know where I am going wrong???
Ps
just another thing my picture on sky is good but not great and a while back i saw a thread on how to enter the service menu i changed a few of the settings like
Cool/Normal/Warm
R-Cut 80 80 80
G-Cut 80 80 80
B-Cut 80 80 80
R-Drv F0 ED F8
G-Drv FC FC FC
B-Drv EB CA 9B
All-Cut 80 80 80
All-Drv FC FC FC
Can anyone who knows about plasmas tell me if i changed any of these settings would it have a dramatic enough effect on my picture as to make hd look worse and if so can anyone recomend a souloution.
If that was not bad enough there is also now a vertical line to the left which is quite noticable when the screen is on a black scene and the camera pans does anyone know what this might be?
Anyway enough of my ranting hope someone out there can help i would really appreciate it.
 
Sounds like your 720p files are a bit ropey. It happens a lot.

I can't believe your graphics card has no adjustments, what is it?
 
do you think the settings have changed the picture at all i posted the settings above but i changed a few things and forgot to write the settings down.
My card is a radeon x300
 

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