My HDTV Adventure...Windows Vista Ultimate Media Center

One of my goals when I decided to purchase my Sony KDL46XBR2 LCD TV was to be able to use it with Windows Vista Ultimate and I wanted to connect the Sony via a single HDMI cable.

As part of my Vista upgrade I purchased an ATI Radeon X1650 Pro 512 AGP card using their trade up program. I traded in a very old card, sold my ATI AIW 9800 on eBay bringing my upgrade cost well below $100. The X1650 was my only real choice since my Intel D865PERL motherboard only has an AGP slot. The X1650 works fine, however I would have liked to have 2 DVI outputs rather than one VGA and one DVI so that I could run both of my Samsung 204B monitors in digital mode.

In order to split the DVI output of the X1650 I purchased a Gefen DVI EXT-DVI-144 splitter, one side goes to the Samsung monitor, the other is routed to a Gefen HDMI 4x1 switcher using a Gefen DVI to HDMI cable. This switcher allows me to control output to the Sony between Windows Vista and the Directv HR20 DVR. I will use the additional inputs at some point for an HD and/or Blue-ray DVD player. This allows me to use one HDMI cable to the TV. This setup does not come cheap, but I wanted to have the Sony decode the digital signal to get the best possible picture. I can attest that the picture quality with an HDMI is much better than one using a component connection. I am very pleased with the Gefen splitter, switch, and cables. Their customer support is excellent and I was able to get the equipment at a discounted price from kvmgalore.com.

Here is how the components are connected:

ATI Radeon X1650 analog -> VGA cable -> Samsung 204B (used as an extended monitor)

                                digital   -> Gefen EXT-DVI-144  -> Samsung 204B (used as the primary monitor)

                                                                                  -> Gefen 6' DVI-HDMI cable -> Gefen 4x1 HDMI switcher input 2

Directv HR20 DVR ->      ->      ->     ->      ->      ->    -> Gefen 6' HDMI cable        -> Gefen 4x1 HDMI switcher input 1 -> Gefen 30' HDMI cable -> Sony KDL46XBR2

One of the problems that has plagued the VGA world is how the display configures itself to the VGA card's output resolution. If you have ever done presentations using someone else's projector you know what I mean. With DVI and HDMI part of the information that is transmitted  to the monitor or projector from the video card is resolution and frequency. I quickly found out that what the Samsung monitor is willing to accept is different than the Sony TV. The native resolution for the Samsung is 1600 x 1200 while the Sony is 1920 x 1080. While it is possible to find a reduced resolution that works on both, it is a big compromise in picture quality. Since I did not need to have both the Samsung and Sony on at the same time I chose to create two profiles using ATI's Catalyst software. One for my desktop two monitor environment and the other for the Sony TV with 1080p  HDTV support. (Catalyst 7.4 seems to have an issue with Vista so I am using 7.3).

This setup works very well, Media Center is easy to use on and looks great on the Sony, however I am not very impressed with the default Internet based content. I clearly need to play around with it some more but for viewing my Photoshop Elements photo stories and videos it is great. It is a much better solution than the Directv HR20 media device feature which is limited to still photos and music. I can see the power of the media center interface, it is intuitive and flows nicely. All we need is Directv tuner hardware to put into our PCs and we would have a killer environment. Back in 2001 I saw a Directv PC card demoed but it never made it to market, too bad.

Comments

[Kris]

I have a computer case w/ a montior built in (1024x768)and a 1080p hdtv. Do you know if there is a way to have two differnet resolutions on a clone-view setup without using panning on the smaller monitor?

[Stephen Skarlatos]

I looked for such a splitter but was never able to find one.

[bluetooth mouse]

I am using this hdmi dvi splitter for connecting my devices and it works great because split dvi into 2 outputs. The technical information is good that really force someone to buy this splitter.