Widescreen Gaming Forum

Hello!

Quick question, although I am not sure if the answer will be so quick.

I have various different video files and formats that I want to play back on my as of yet, unpurchased TV.

I am looking at a Sony KDL-40EX500 (100Hz, CCFL backlight from the base range), which is not a particularly great TV spec wise, but has been reviewed as a good budget screen. I tried my camera *more on this later in the post* on the EX700 and thought the defenition was good, with no visible jitter.

Now! Onto my question.

To play 720p 23.976FPS video, do you need to swap the HDMI resolution from 1920x1080 @ 60Hz? Or will it just bang the signal out at the right FPS/ refresh rate? As far as I am aware now, my camera which records at 1080p50 (Panasonic HDC-SD700) is played at 60Hz on my monitor when I save the files to the hard drive, and play them in VLC, WMP etc.

I basically want to know, do you have to go through and physically change the HDMI resolution/ refresh rate for 23.976, 24, 25, 30, 50 and 60 (PC content) frames per second? Is there anyway to hotkey this with nV and ATi (AMD) graphics cards?

I have a GTX460 or HD6870 on the shopping list, and have a HT amp on the list for later on. Just want a little more insight before I go out and waste my time with stuff.

The camera plays at 1920x1080p50 as far as I am aware, and the TV handled it fine, although I had the wrong remote control so couldn't look into settings but I am sure the 100Hz mode was on, and the colour mode was awful, but how that would of effected the motion I don't know.

Thanks for reading this, and I hope someone can enlighten me!

Your PC will treat your TV as just another monitor, if you have a SPDIF connector on your graphics card it'll also transfer sound.

All you do is set the res to what ever you want on the TV (best to pick the screens native resolution, my HD ready TVs native is 1360x768), then pick the program you want to play the files though, and then tell the program if you want it to play it at the file resolution or at fullscreen, like you would on any normal monitor.

Your PC will treat your TV as just another monitor, if you have a SPDIF connector on your graphics card it'll also transfer sound.

All you do is set the res to what ever you want on the TV (best to pick the screens native resolution, my HD ready TVs native is 1360x768), then pick the program you want to play the files though, and then tell the program if you want it to play it at the file resolution or at fullscreen, like you would on any normal monitor.

But what I was meaning is that if I play 23.976fps content on a screen that is set up as 1080p60 for example then it will leave the graphic card performing the conversion of a non syncronous frame rate onto the screen? There is no way that the HDMI output is intelligent enough to adapt the refresh rate based on the content?

It is something that has to be done manually correct?

Like for example if you play a 24p BR on a TV that doesn't support 24p, the TV plays it back at 25p (PAL countries) and then you have pitch shifted audio, etc.

That's just a matter of timing, to display a cutscreen recorded at 30FPS on a screen running at 60Hz, then it'll display one frame every 2Hz. To display something rendered at 24FPS then it changes the frame around every 2.5Hz. The only time your computer will be forced to do any work playing a video is when its compressed or encoded, size, speed, are child's play, your TV will not have to anything other then display the image sent to it.

As stated you only need to set your computers output res, your player will do any conversion needed, it will not need to change the res at all.

24FPS on 60FPS uses 3:2 pulldown. It's not bad, but some people notice judder (that sequential frames are on the screen for different amounts of time,) but it's not something that bothers me.
So yes, 24FPS content will play over a 60Hz connection. Some 120+Hz TV's can do judder-free by using 24Hz connection if you want the perfect view.

24FPS on 60FPS uses 3:2 pulldown. It's not bad, but some people notice judder (that sequential frames are on the screen for different amounts of time,) but it's not something that bothers me.
So yes, 24FPS content will play over a 60Hz connection. Some 120+Hz TV's can do judder-free by using 24Hz connection if you want the perfect view.

Yeah, this was what I was meaning. I have seen the 24p/ 25p problem before when I was installing that stuff all the time in England, wondered if that have moved on as I have been abscent from the game for too long now!

I think I will try a 24p setup for bluray and 50/60p for camera and general PC usage and see how it goes. I fear also it will vary from TV to TV how well it handles the signal.