Using a HD Ready Plasma with my HDMI Laptop

T

Tdh1987

Guest
I've been using my Toshiba 32av505db LCD TV to connect to my Laptops HDMI socket. I set the resolution to 1280 x 720, start the mkv and off we go.

Now that I've moved into my new home I need to a bigger TV. I really like the look of the Panasonic TX-P42X20B for £426.55.

My Query is that the maximum resolution is 1024 x 768. So what resolution should I set the laptop at when it's hooked up to the Panasonic plasma?? should it be 1280 x 720 or 1024 x 768?

Thanks for reading.

Tom.
 
I'd try both and see what looks better. The 'safe' option is 720p, as the HDMI connection should 'understand' that.

Edit: You might want to think about a plasma with higher resolution if you are going to get full HD content in the future.
 
I would set is as the wider option as possible for the screen. If the screen only accepts 1024 x 768 then I guess that is the only option.

You should find that when you connect the pc to the tv that it trys to "default" to something, that will give you a good idea. If the TV accepts the higher resolution then great, but I guess you'll get the reply like you do a monitor when you try to over resolution it "out of range"

Just make sure you do the setting up so that when you change resolution you have the "does this work yes/no" button with count down so if the screen does go blank at least it'll revert back to the previous resolution after 10secs or whatever.
 
Connecting PC's to HDMI screens is usually done in the graphics driver utility for that PC.

Invariably they support 2 resolutions straight out. They are 1280 x 720 or 720p and 1920 x 1080 or 1080p.

Other resolutions can be quite difficult to get. Using the Nvidia or ATi overdrive controls can get you close enough to the common native resolution of 1366 x 768 , but only because that is still close to a 16:9 resolution.

However , Be warned , 1024 x 768 is a native 4:3 resolution , and getting a PC to output that correctly over a HDMI socket to a HDTV can be an absolute bitch.

You may get far better results using the VGA output ( if the laptop has one ) to the TV's PC input.
 
I would strongly recommend going for 1080p TV if you are going to use the PC for anything other than video, otherwise text and stuff looks really crappy at 720p! try it out by changing the resolution on your monitor to something similar and see the difference.

there are a few tx-p42s10b 's kicking about, or LG do some reasonable 1080p plasmas at decent money, try Richer Sounds clearance itermws theres a few gems in there, I just found a 1080p tx-l3710b LCD tv at £350 on there

a 1080p TV will also usually "upscale" HDMI inputs so even standard DVD's and dare I say SD TV broadcasts via Sky look pretty good
 
I would strongly recommend going for 1080p TV if you are going to use the PC for anything other than video, otherwise text and stuff looks really crappy at 720p! try it out by changing the resolution on your monitor to something similar and see the difference.

there are a few tx-p42s10b 's kicking about, or LG do some reasonable 1080p plasmas at decent money, try Richer Sounds clearance itermws theres a few gems in there, I just found a 1080p tx-l3710b LCD tv at £350 on there

a 1080p TV will also usually "upscale" HDMI inputs so even standard DVD's and dare I say SD TV broadcasts via Sky look pretty good

In some respects I agree with choosing a 1080p TV, purely for that fact that most of them are fairly cheap these days.

There is probably already a massive debate on Plasma or LCD for HTPC use, but I would suggest either LCD or LED for HTPC use, Monitors have proved that LCD works well with computers. LCD's support higher resolutions for your £. If you could stretch to LED then this would probably put you on a par with plasma's nowadays for contrast ratios.

720p is fine for browsing etc, I have a very cheap 720p Digihome 37" screen and I can do anything on it sat 4m away and it doesn't look crud or "crappy" at all.

I was a little confused by your OP, does the laptop only support 1024x768 or is the TV you are choosing? If the laptop only supports that res then you are a bit stuck, if it's the TV then read the small print as this may be on a PC connection and not via HDMI. Whatever the max resolution of your laptop is, is pretty much what you will get out of your TV.

HTH :smashin:
 
Sorry to confuse. The Laptop supports in excess of 1080p so thats not the problem.

I only connect the laptop to my current LCD when I want to watch a mkv movie, so 720p is acceptable.

What I want to make sure is that if I get the Panasonic TX-P42X20B can I connect the HDMI and set the resolution to 1280 x 720 just like I can with my current Toshiba LCD? The Specifications for the Panasonic states that the maximum resolution 1024 x 768, but how is it possible, it's a HD Ready TV?? :confused:
 
1024 x 768 is a valid native resolution for some HD ready plasmas.

These can be very very difficult to set up correctly with a PC as most wont directly support this resolution in the graphics card driver utilty.
( Im referring to the HDTV utility here ).

1366 x 768 is easy enough to do because its still a 16:9 resolution and can be corrected to from 720p using the usual overscan correction utility. 1024 x 768 is not so easy. I have painful experience of this.

If you want to make things easier , either use the TV's PC connection (VGA), which will have no problem with this resolution , or get a 1080p TV.

Scaling of content is also handled a different way when connecting up a PC , your playback software on the PC will have to be set up for this to get the best results. ( i.e ffdshow etc. )

As you nearly always have to set the PC to the TV's native resolution to get usable results , the TV's scaler will play no part , because once its receiving its native resolution as a signal , the scaler is inactive.
 
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