[JonathanBL]

Good evening everyone,


I am very new to your world (my current tv is a 27" CRT) and I am in the process of buying a 45-55" tv for my living room. I just started and tons of very hard questions popped up and no Future Shop or Best Buy clerks look good enough on the subject to really guide me in the process so here I am with a run down of the questions I have.


But first, please keep in mind I want to hook up my computer to the living room tv. I will watch youtube, divx (hd and non-hd) on it. I'm not subscribed to hd cable or any other cable plan (I get my stuff from blurays, dvds, internet, etc). And most important of all : I want to play with this setup (games of all styles ranging from League of Legends to Battlefield Bad Company 2.


Here we go :



1) What technology should I buy?

It looks like a basic question but I need to know what will best fit my needs? I cannot tolerate any sort of input lag worse than what I would get from a regular computer monitor (to make things simple : the lowest lag possible is my goal).



Lots of forums points me towards Plasma tvs for this. But some people still insist on other technologies such as LCD.



2) How to hook my PC to my tv?

I've heard about wireless solutions but after some research it is obviously NOT what I need. They look fine for watching movies because the input delay they offer can't be noticeable as long as the sound suffer from the exact same delay. Gaming is another beast. So I need to link with a cable my PC to the tv over a 40 feet distance.


The only affordable way I found to do this is with a cable from monoprice. The name is "40ft Ultra Slim High Performance HDMI® Cable w/ RedMere®". According to customer reviews, there is absolutely no input lag delay over this cable and the quality of the image carried doesn't suffer no matter the long distance to cover.



Would it be the best solution or is there a better one?


3) Sound over hdmi?

I'm having a hard to getting a clear answer on this one. Will I need to hookup a 40 feet sound cable as well or will my EVGA GeForce GTX 560 Ti FPB do it through its HDMI port?




Thank you very much to everyone that will bring in answers to my questions!

 

[joeblow]

Welcome!


It looks like you've done some research already and have a good idea of what you want. I have a great HTPC setup in the man cave (60" Sony 3DTV, Radeon 6970 vid card, 5.1 audio), so here are my thoughts:


1. You could likely get by playing on displays with slight lag under 40 ms, but if you do want the absolute lowest you can get, I remember reading raves a year ago about some of the ASUS displays. Keep in mind that a trade-off is usually the larger the display, the less likely you can hit the lowest ms numbers


Check out any relevant threads at the fighting game Shoryuken.com . If any group is ultra sensitive to lag and have recommendations, it's the players at their forums.


2. WHile I can't comment on that specific HDMI cable, I do get my stuff from monoprice as well and even the generic brand works well as long as you aren't stretching things too far (i.e. 50 feet plus).


3. If you connect an extended HDMI cable from your video card to your display, that should be it as far as audio goes. Consider using a audio receiver to maximize your options (like surround sound), but there are no major issues I can think of with modern cards and sound support through HDMI.

 

[number1laing]

I have a plasa because it has the lowest input lag by far. Of course, plasmas have some known and well-documented issues. I've been using my HTPC on mine for about a month and haven't run into problems. That's not to say I'm not scared of what an 8-hour session of Diablo 3 or Civilization would do to my TV, but I just don't play games like that anymore sadly. I have played all sorts of games on the TV (Dawn of War 2, Max Payne 3, Bulletstorm, Alan Wake, Street Fighter IV, etc.).


I run sound through the HDMI port on my GPU, and it works just fine. It really shouldn't be a problem, just make sure you get a HDMI cord long enough to do what you need. I run the HDMI cord to the TV, and then the TV has a digital out I send to my receiver (actually, a sound bar). It works just as well on the PC as it does on my cable box, PS3, and 360. I also have a Mixamp setup and run optical from the motherboard to the Mixamp which goes to the headphones when I feel like total immersion. I can switch between the two in Windows sound options.

 

[Mik James]

I did quite a few 5-6 hour gaming sessions on my 2008 panny plasma as well as basic desktop work.

If your browsing the web just remember to keep the contrast control low to minimize the aging difference of the pixels and you won't have any problems.

Samsung seems to be the best for anti image retention or burn in and lg is touted as the worst for it.


Asus monitors and nearly every tn LCD for that matter have pretty blatantly bad picture quality.

The only companies that I have seen a decent tn panel from are Samsung and Gateway with Samsung being the more reliable.

Most lcds tvs 32" and above under 800$ or so should be avoided in your case as they have va panels (some lg's have ips panels which are a decent mix of response time and picture quality but lg's usually have lighter black levels and lesser contrast.


I'm not sure input lag is really all that much lower on a plasma than on a quick LCD with a tn panel or an expensive lcd with a game mode. I've noticed some lag on both a va panel LCD that I've owned and a cheapo prima brand plasma (had some image retention) but on my panny plasma, tn LCD monitor and CRT rear pro input lag is negligible as far as I can tell.

 

[millej]



Quote:
Originally Posted by JonathanBL  /t/1420385/first-time-htpc-gaming-customer-what-should-i-buy-to-fill-my-needs#post_22221394


Good evening everyone,

I am very new to your world (my current tv is a 27" CRT) and I am in the process of buying a 45-55" tv for my living room. I just started and tons of very hard questions popped up and no Future Shop or Best Buy clerks look good enough on the subject to really guide me in the process so here I am with a run down of the questions I have.

But first, please keep in mind I want to hook up my computer to the living room tv. I will watch youtube, divx (hd and non-hd) on it. I'm not subscribed to hd cable or any other cable plan (I get my stuff from blurays, dvds, internet, etc). And most important of all : I want to play with this setup (games of all styles ranging from League of Legends to Battlefield Bad Company 2.

Here we go :

1) What technology should I buy?

It looks like a basic question but I need to know what will best fit my needs? I cannot tolerate any sort of input lag worse than what I would get from a regular computer monitor (to make things simple : the lowest lag possible is my goal).


Lots of forums points me towards Plasma tvs for this. But some people still insist on other technologies such as LCD.

2) How to hook my PC to my tv?

I've heard about wireless solutions but after some research it is obviously NOT what I need. They look fine for watching movies because the input delay they offer can't be noticeable as long as the sound suffer from the exact same delay. Gaming is another beast. So I need to link with a cable my PC to the tv over a 40 feet distance.

The only affordable way I found to do this is with a cable from monoprice. The name is "40ft Ultra Slim High Performance HDMI® Cable w/ RedMere®". According to customer reviews, there is absolutely no input lag delay over this cable and the quality of the image carried doesn't suffer no matter the long distance to cover.


Would it be the best solution or is there a better one?

3) Sound over hdmi?

I'm having a hard to getting a clear answer on this one. Will I need to hookup a 40 feet sound cable as well or will my EVGA GeForce GTX 560 Ti FPB do it through its HDMI port?


Thank you very much to everyone that will bring in answers to my questions!

Welcome!

1) Its really up to you, I prefer my plasma TV myself, I also have a Epson 8700un projecting onto a 130" screen as well. I'm still gaming on my 5 yr old 50" Samsung plasma and its great, dont have any complaints about it maybe except the sound. You could always go with a projector and go like 130" lol, but then youre in a whole 'nother ballpark hehe.


2) Go hdmi for sure from your video card to TV, almost all vid cards have more than 1 hdmi now out , should be no problem!


3) Yes you can do audio over hdmi, should be able to goto into the TV no problem, monoprice is a good place to pick up a cable as you have seen. Heres my thoughs, from my experience, sound on TV degrades and in general sucks for gaming, my speakers on my tv are pretty unusable when trying to watch a movie, any sort of bass and the little speakers rattle something awful. I'd go with a receiver and pick up some good priced speakers. It will really increase the gaming joy, I love BC2 as well and it ROCKS on my 5.1 system with a 12" sub!!

Def worth the money to check out!


Hope that helps, feel free to ask anything else I love me some HTPC gaming

 

[Joeforsale]

I used a 50ft HDMI cable that I fed through the wall (got it for $25 on eBay) and never had any issues. And I would also recommend a surround setup.