Computer to HDTV Sound Options

"I have read your guide on how to use an HDTV as a computer monitor and found it to be very informative. There is however one detail I am unsure of. This is Sound. If I were to plug my PC video card to my HDTV via a DVI/HDMI cable I would get pure digital visual but no audio correct? But if I were to plug it in via HDMI/HDMI from video card to HDTV would I get audio? Or do i have to buy a sound card with HDMI out to get surround sound?"

There are a several different ways to get audio passed from your PC to your HDTV. Depending on what hardware you have available, you may be limited to stereo audio, with a few cases where you can also get surround sound.

Nero 8 Gets Hardware Acceleration for HD Video

Both Nvidia and ATI have enabled hardware acceleration in their dedicated video cards to help deliver a better high definition viewing experience for both video files and playback of Blu-ray disks. At one point, Cyberlink PowerDVD was the only video player that fully supported hardware acceleration in their software. Nero was showing off a working demo of an upate to Nero 8 Ultra Edition taking full advantage of hardware acceleration while playing back both Blu-ray disks and HD files. You'll have to click through on the image above and view the large sized image on Flickr to actually see the stats, but this brings CPU usage for HD playback under 20%, which is a dramatic performance boost over what often spiked in the range of 80% during some high definition video. Of course you need a dedicated Nvidia or ATI card to take advantage of this new feature when it becomes available, but you really can't play HD without one, unless you buy a new computer using the AMD 7 Series chipset.

If you don't currently have Nero 8, you can qualify for upgrade pricing from previous versions.

AMD Live! Home Cinema Changes Home Theather PC Market

The home theater PC market has been rather dull for several years. Sure you can get a sound card with 7.1 surround sound, but they've generally been noisier than I'd want in my own home theater. You can purchase video cards that output to an HDTV and support HDCP, but the experience hasn't been on par with using home theater components. At Computex 2008, AMD is showing off a couple of new boards from MSI that change the game in important fundamental ways.

Convert HDMI to VGA with HDCP

"I want to connect my Blu-ray player (PS3) to my monitor. The monitor only has a VGA input. What would I need to convert the HDMI out on my PS3 to a VGA connection?"

One of the key challenges in converting HDMI to VGA is maintaining support for HDCP, which creates a protected signal path from Blu-ray players to a monitor as a means of preventing copying. There are a number of converters that will connect an HDMI cable to a VGA port, but anytime HDCP is present, instead of rendering the video signal, you get a black screen on the monitor. To avoid the black screen, you need a converter that includes support for HDCP.

Making DVDs From HD movies

"When you copy HD video from a camcorder to a DVD, do you have to playback on a HD-DVD player or will it play back on a standard DVD player?"

It really depends on the format you choose for your DVD whether the DVD you burn will play in a standard DVD player, or whether you need an HD-DVD player in order to watch your DVD creation. If you have an HD-DVD player, the method I describe for burning HD-DVDs on standard DVD media will result in DVDs that only play in HD-DVD drives. Your other option is to output your HD content as a standard definition video during the authoring process. Here's how this works:

Can I Play a Blu-ray Disc in My DVD Player?

"I have an HDTV and want to watch more movies in HD. Blockbuster says it rents high definition Bluray movies. My question is, can I play a Bluray disk in my DVD player and watch it on my HDTV?"

Unless your current DVD player is a Blu-ray player, it won't play Blu-ray discs. Blu-ray discs, while similar in appearance to standard DVDs, require a special blue laser to play the contents of the disc. Unfortunately this is somewhat complicated because there are several versions of Blu-ray discs and not all Blu-ray players can play all Blu-ray discs. If you're planning to buy a Blu-ray player in the near future, the PlayStation 3 game console is the only safe choice - it's currently the one Blu-ray player on the market that's software upgradeable to support any future changes to the format.

It's also worth pointing out here that your current DVD player will not play HD-DVDs either. You would need an HD-DVD player. Also, except for a couple of overpriced units that play both, you'd need a separate HD-DVD player for HD-DVDs and Blu-ray player for Blu-ray discs.

More on HD-DVD and Blu-ray.

Connect a PC to an HDTV

How can I connect my PC to my HDTV? I know it's possible to connect my PC to an HD screen, but I'm not sure what hardware I need to do to make it work.

I've covered a couple of variations on this in the past, talking about using an HDTV as a PC monitor and which connection you need to go from a PC to HDTV, but this time, I'm including a video to walk through the process. For most HDTV screens purchased in the last 2-3 years, you need to make a connection from a DVI out on your PC to an HDMI in on your HDTV. If you currently use onboard video on your PC (as in you didn't buy the more expensive video card option when you bought the computer) there's a strong possibility that you'll need a new video card. For cabling, choose between either a cable with DVI on one end and HDMI on the other, or an HDMI cable coupled with a DVI-to-HDMI adapter. Either way, read this article on how to not overpay for HDMI cables.

Watch the video for more details and step-by-step instructions:

Connect a Mac to an HDTV

"A friend of mine suggested I could use my HDTV as a monitor for my Mac. How can I connect my Mac to my HDTV to watch movies and browse my iTunes library from the couch?"

Connecting your Mac to your HDTV is surprisingly simple. All you need is the right cable and you're most of the way there. All recent Mac hardware (with the exception of iMacs) include support for connecting a monitor via DVI. HDTV screens occasionally offer DVI as a connection option, but more typically rely on HDMI for making a digital connection to set top boxes, game consoles, and other hardware like your Mac. The big decision you need make is whether to get a cable that already has one HDMI end and one DVI end, or whether you plan to purchase an HDMI cable and HDMI-to-DVI adapter.

The best way to get the cable and/or the HDMI-to-DVI adapter is to find an online retailer because local retailers typically only carry overpriced HDMI cables. More details on how to avoid overpriced cables.

Watch the video for details on how to connect your Mac to your HDTV.

The Difference between HDTV and HDTV Ready

"I'm finally making the leap to HDTV and I'm confused by all the options. One that really confuses me is the use of terms like HDTV and HDTV Ready. Are these the same thing? Or can you tell me what's the difference between HDTV and HDTV Ready?"

HDTV and HDTV Ready are definitely not the same thing. And to make things more confusing, they aren't used consistently in marketing speak.

Free HDTV Calibration Slides

"How can I calibrate my HDTV to make my movies look great?"

I'm frequently asked about my favorite tools for calibrating HDTV screens. There are a bunch of solid choices, but many of them are expensive. Brandon Wirtz, an expert on video quality, recently put together a set of still images perfect for calibrating everything from 1080p screens down to your standard CRT. best of all, Brandon is making them available free for personal use. You can download the set of HDTV calibration slates directly and then start calibrating everything from your DVD movie watching experience, to your PS3 gaming experience, to your home media center view experience. I think one of the best things about this particular set of slides is they are optimized for normal people, so you don't need to be a HDTV geek in order to improve you home theater viewing experience.