So I have been silently lurking around on AVS Forum now for at least a year reading the HTPC and Direct View thread with great detail, and now I am ready to take the next step towards HTPC convergence and need a little help advice.
I have actually had a HTPC setup now for at least 3 years, using a DXR2 card and an XBR250 SVideo out for DVD, and a scan converter for VGA. Obviouslly being an older generation wega, the VGA signal looks horrible for the most part but has always been tolerable (it is not my primary PC).
I have recently replaced the DXR2 with a Sigma XCard as it provided component out with 480i support (divx/mpeg4 was a side bonus, but I am not utilizing it as of yet as my HTPC CPU is too slow for encoding).
The problem is I now have the bug to do some serious upgrades on the setup, primarily with the display. I have for the most part narrowed down my choices to two displays, the 40XBR700, and a Monivision DM7752S (they OEM to Princeton and CTX right?).
From what I have gathered from searching and reading through the forum, is that the newer HD ready XBR's can for the most part handle what you throw at it via a transcoder granted you get the timings right, but then there is the problem with actual resolution, overscan, issues with applications/games that do not like the custom resolutions etc. (if I have over simplified the various issues I apolegize).
With the Monivision it seems that I could possibly overcome some of these issues by just throwing 800x600 at it (supposedly supports 1024x768, but I highly doubt its practical for a HTPC setup) for my desktop res and as its a 'monitor' it should be able to cope with various other resolutions that games or anything else may throw at it. Also I should be able to configure the monitor via h-size and v-size so that there is no cropping from overscan. The unit specs say that it supports 480p/720p/1080i as well via the visionbox to boot.
What bothers me is that I have not seen the Monivision unit with my own eyes, so the dot pitch (.78 according to them, different according to forum search results) issue bothers me (older threads indicate that its not an issue, others say its horrible).
Blah, I guess I am just looking for some pointers/insight on the units, maybe someone else is using one, has used one, hates them, loves them (wega or monivision) etc.
Thanks,
Paul Dermody
I have actually had a HTPC setup now for at least 3 years, using a DXR2 card and an XBR250 SVideo out for DVD, and a scan converter for VGA. Obviouslly being an older generation wega, the VGA signal looks horrible for the most part but has always been tolerable (it is not my primary PC).
I have recently replaced the DXR2 with a Sigma XCard as it provided component out with 480i support (divx/mpeg4 was a side bonus, but I am not utilizing it as of yet as my HTPC CPU is too slow for encoding).
The problem is I now have the bug to do some serious upgrades on the setup, primarily with the display. I have for the most part narrowed down my choices to two displays, the 40XBR700, and a Monivision DM7752S (they OEM to Princeton and CTX right?).
From what I have gathered from searching and reading through the forum, is that the newer HD ready XBR's can for the most part handle what you throw at it via a transcoder granted you get the timings right, but then there is the problem with actual resolution, overscan, issues with applications/games that do not like the custom resolutions etc. (if I have over simplified the various issues I apolegize).
With the Monivision it seems that I could possibly overcome some of these issues by just throwing 800x600 at it (supposedly supports 1024x768, but I highly doubt its practical for a HTPC setup) for my desktop res and as its a 'monitor' it should be able to cope with various other resolutions that games or anything else may throw at it. Also I should be able to configure the monitor via h-size and v-size so that there is no cropping from overscan. The unit specs say that it supports 480p/720p/1080i as well via the visionbox to boot.
What bothers me is that I have not seen the Monivision unit with my own eyes, so the dot pitch (.78 according to them, different according to forum search results) issue bothers me (older threads indicate that its not an issue, others say its horrible).
Blah, I guess I am just looking for some pointers/insight on the units, maybe someone else is using one, has used one, hates them, loves them (wega or monivision) etc.
Thanks,
Paul Dermody
