Is your HTPC connected to a native 1024X768 720P Plasma? Are you happy about it?

Happy with 1368x768.

don't bother.
non-standard native res' are annoying. (for media)

1368 is pretty good and you can always switch to 1280 with minimal issue if you dont like it. if 1280 is the native.. well.. you don't have a option of a good looking 1368.

I have my 1024x768 42 in Sammy Plasma hooked up to my HTPC running BTV, recording HD programming in SD from my cableco STB in via svideo. If I want to watch HD live, I change inputs and watch it directly from the STB while still recording in SD. I also do some gaming (FPS) and couldn't be happier.

My PC connection is via VGA (HDMI works but gave issues with my receiver) with a resolution of 1024x768. Video playback is great (near DVD quality) and test clips of OTA HD are outstanding. When viewing the desktop the icons and text are crystal clear because of the 1:1 pixel mapping of the 1024x768 PC output. The desktop is stretched by the rectangular pixels but it doesn't bother me with text or gaming the way a stretched video does (short fat actors make me crazy). Admittedly Jack is a little fat when playing Far Cry, but the pleasure of gaming on a 42 in wide screen @ 5 ft overcomes this drawback

For me it works great, but I am sure that the 1080p/BR crowd and serious gamers will will think me daft.

BB

edit I should say that if I were buying and had my choice of a 1368 vs a 1024 set for the same price, I would go for 1368 cuz it is easier, but if you already own the 1024 or are on a budget, the 1024 works great (at least for these old eyes).

BB

I use 1368x768 as my baseline PC type environment on the plasma. You have the advantage of proper square pixel 16x9 res and only a rescale in the x axis on the display ( it seems pretty good at this).

Works for 50Hz and 23.976 just fine but when I'm viewing video I tend to use 1920x1080 regardless . Mainly because I have a projector and the dual display thing screws around with the 1368x768 but thje 1368 res works fine in single display mode.

if you are connecting over hdmi you may find you are limted to 1080p and 720p regardless ( choose 1080p in this case unless you are doing computer stuff, websurfing etc).

I dunno. All the technicalities aside, our family likes it. It's a 42PX75U. PQ doesn't seem any worse than our 50PX77U. Both are hooked up to identical HTPC systems. The HTPCs aren't used for anything other than watching movies and streaming music.

I've had mine for years and it's been great but there's no way in heck I'd do it again. Case in point:Although PDVD provides support for these non-standard displays, TMT does not which forces me to set my display resolution to a non-native 1280x768 to allow it to display "properly".
I keep waiting for the display to die so I can justify purchasing a 1080p set and can put those scaling/aspect ratio issues to rest.


No

DON'T DO IT.

I have a rectangular pixel plasma from years ago and they are a true PITA. Your desktop and everything else will be stretched, unless you use playback software that can compensate (like Zoom Player's source relative stretch). Most software (including software for HD playback) cannot compensate and you are screwed. And giving up native resolution for a proper aspect ratio makes things even worse.

Ditch the plasma, get a 1080p 42" LCD and you will be way happier. If you insist on plasma, step up to Panasonic's 1080p model. The next step up, the 1366x768 models, have many problems of their own with HTPCs.

Doubt there will be any - at best it's an ok compromise, but nobody's going to be "delighted"
2,000,000 pixels vs. "only" 780,000 is a pretty big difference in pq and then you have all the problems in trying to integrate various apps that aren't "non-standard" friendly. I realize that we're all in different positions these days, but in a year are you going to look at your set and say "boy, I'm glad I saved a couple hundred bucks" or "dang, I should have waited another month and bought the one I really should have"?

Obviously your call - but there is no upside to a 1024x768 display anymore with such a negligible price difference.

Spend a little extra, and avoid buyer's remorse. Not only are rectangular pixels bad, but 1024x768 is a really low resolution. You'll be sorry.

If you insist on a low resolution set, make absolutely sure that all the software you will ever want to use has a feature to compensate for rectangular pixels (e.g., Zoom Player). Otherwise you will be forced to degrade quality even further by using another video mode and resizing.

I live with my old plasma only because I use it strictly for DVD playback, and Zoom Player takes care of the resizing, so I can use native resolution.

I have the Panny 42" 720p and am delighted with it (paid $699). I recommend you go into an electronic reseller and view the picture of a 1080p model vs the 720p model. I think you will find out rather quickly why they NEVER place both sets side by side. That being said, I must admit I don't have 20/20 vision -- more like 20/30 -- so it is quite a personal decision.

It is a problem. I would definitely go 1080p today. Media playback is no problem, but any kind of desktop is just a pain. Ante up and go for 1080p, you'll be glad you did.

(Or I'll give you a good deal on mine, and I'LL go buy the 1080p).

I guess I'm confused about what the problem is with the 42" 720p Panny. We think the picture is wonderful and all the movies look fabulous on it.

Maybe it's the difference between the non-expert consumers like me versus experts like the others on this forum.

All I know is that the 42 and 50 inch plasmas that we have at home provide stunning pictures from our viewing distances and look not a bit worse than the 1080p sets we see nowadays at the store and insanely better than the Trinitron we had 3 years ago.

What should I be looking for to be able to tell how bad the picture is on my set? As a monitor it isn't good--I understand that. But what is there video-wise that is bad? What is that my TVs can't handle from the HTPC? It's the Gigabyte 780g board running CCC on VMC/MediaPortal.

I have a 720P samsung Plasma and I am running native 720 and then use Cat drivers to scale to fit screen due to underscan. Looks great, blu ray, etc. all playback without problems.

you'll have to send 1280x720p to your display and it will then get downsampled, it's gonna look really fuzzy on the desktop.

Video will be fine.

There is also a big difference between feeding a 1368x768, 1280x720 (lower res) and upsampling it to native than downsampling 1280x720 to 1024x768.

I have the TH-42PX75U and the TH-50PX77U, both connected via HDMI.

As for resolution, I'll have to look once I get home. But, I believe for video I set it to 720p. I've set it to 1080p before as well, but I can't tell a difference in PQ (which makes sense), so I leave it at 720p.

For desktop, I think I set it to the closest resolution number I can find and then play with the overscan control.

But, I can give better details this evening.

AFAIKA they have finally stopped making these rectangular pixel models since they are no longer able to save much money by making them.
As long as your are only going to use it only as a TV and never BRVDs and will be at a far enough viewing distance (>about 12') to not notice the down scaling of the incoming signal. It may be OK for you but since the current generation of 720 plasmas are 1366x768 I don 't reccomend it.
Also for about the same price you can get a true 1080p LCD model

Well, prices certainly aren't going up in this market-
So, a 42" non-standard plasma is (including shipping) in the low $700 range and a 42" Sharp 1080p lcd is about $100 more (from the same large retailer) - seems like a no-brainer for HTPC use.

For "just" plain-old HD television you'd be very happy - love mine for that. However noting the aforementioned difficulties in scaling media from a computer - there would have to be a much (much) bigger price difference to justify that purchase. Knowing what I know now and if I only had exactly $730 in my pocket I'd leave the space on my wall blank until I could come up with the extra $100

1024x768 Plasma here. I run it at it's native resolution so text/desktop is perfectly clear.

PowerDVD setting is set to "stretch to fit screen" to get proper scaling of the aspect ratio and TotalMedia Theatre's similar setting is de-selecting the checkbox "keep aspect ratio". This lets me use my displays native resolution and allows the playback software to rescale the aspect ratio properly. End result is perfectly clear desktop and video playback scaled correctly.

I wish there was a way to rescale the desktop aspect ratio while keeping the resolution set to 1024x768 like PowerDVD and TotalMedia Theatre can since the desktop is perfectly clear, but the aspect is off. Trying 720p or other resolutions outside the native resolution blurs the picture, most noticeable with text - least noticeable with video, but always prefer the clearer and sharper picture of 1:1 pixel mapping.

One problem I ran into with it is when trying to run through say, a AVR that will rescale everything it outputs to standard resolutions only (720/1080) I then loose 1:1 pixel mapping no matter what you set the drivers to. This is bad if you buy the new Xonar HDMI soundcard that requires you to run your video through the soundcard and receiver to maintain the protected audio path for bitstreaming hi-def soundtracks.

Would I buy a 1024x768 res plasma again? Nope. Definitely would be a 1080p display and nothing else. And for movie playback, back when I got my plasma three years ago, there was no comparison that plasma totally blew the doors off of LCD (picture breaking up with fast motion, colors not as bright or vivid, blacks not as black, etc.) Since my main use of the display would be movies, plasma it was.

Wow, all these considerations. I'm glad all I do is watch movies (mostly BD and BD rips) and TV. Perfect picture for that.

I had a 1024*768 42" Panasonic Plasma, and I thought it looked pretty great.

My new 50" plasma is 1366*768. The only problem that I've had with that resolution is that the Xbox 360 only outputs 1360*768 (over vga...720p is the closest over hdmi). No problems so far with 1366 for htpc use. I may be lucky that my plasma has a dvi input for a 1:1 digital signal but vga looks nearly as good.

Well if you cannot output 1336x768 or psossibly 1360x768 over DVI that your TV's abiity to accept and display it is not revelent since only sending and receiving the native resolution of your HDTV with the TV doing any overscan can display true 1:1 and not just the appearance of 1:1.

I have 1024x768 Panasonic plasma, I am using 720p from my HTPC and picture is fantastic with 720p content. It is the best price/quality ratio today, recommended

salajm,
What model do you have? Is it still an in production model?

Yea but then you're not 1:1 pixel mapping. Once you see how PERFECTLY clear text and what-not is with 1:1 pixel mapping you would never use anything other than your displays native resolution. But honestly, it's not as noticeable with video as it is with desktop...

I still say if you're buying today, go 1080p no matter what!