I am trying to understand. I have an ati radeon 9200se The specs tell me that it will do a 1920x1080 display which is, in theory, a 1080p display. Now, when going to ati support they say their dvi to component will only do a 720p/1080i resolution (I need component as hdmi inputs full). I am confused about this as it seems in conflict. I am not wedded to the 9200se and am willing to buy another card if necessary. I am also running with a 1.93 gigahertz AMD Athlon XP I am trying to setup a pc to watch tv over the net. ANY thoughts on this are welcome - thank you.........
Component can only carry up to 1080i, whether a straight cable, or a DVI adapter, the component cable interface does not have the bandwidth to run 1080p. Even so, with an Athlon XP and 9200se, you will struggle to run any 1080p content.
Ok, I am beginning to understand. Its generally accepted that the cabling can handle it but sets so connected cannot. So my radeon 9200 will work just fine up to 720p/1080i and that will do me fine. If I need more then I can go through my dvd which upconverts to 1080p for movies. So, I guess, I am getting there. Now I have to figure out how to figure out how to hook up to local feeds directly. As far as I can tell my cpu seems to be handling video pretty well. Video looks smooth, not jerky, and the picture quality seems good. If it fails its would be pretty easy to upgrade to a tri-core combo w/radeon output for around 150.00 which should cover it all. Thanks for the reply - I really appreciate it.
Also note that component is analogue; not digital. There are remote switch boxes that will allow you to connect 2 or 4 HDMI sources to the one HDMI port on the TV, all digital.