Hopefully not a stupid question

[ffutures]

Yet another computer graphics question, but totally unrelated to the others I've asked recently.

The computer I use as a media PC has VGA out only. My TV has VGA and HDMI inputs, but for some reason doesn't support wide screen VGA - the screen is actually 1366 x 768, but the best graphic mode it supports through this port is 1024 x 768 standard aspect, not widescreen. For TV programs etc. I can work around this by stretching the picture to fill the screen and setting VLC media player to a pixel aspect of 4:3, but most other programs have no way to compensate.

I'd been vaguely thinking about a VGA to HDMI adapter box, but that's seriously expensive. However, I just discovered that DVI to HDMI appears to be a lot easier to implement - just an adapter that costs around £2 and an appropriate cable. And you can get a basic 128mb DVI card with PC Express interface around a tenner.

Has anyone got any experience with this, and is there any down-side I should be aware of?

(Apart from needing an HDMI switch since I will then have two HDMI outputs and one socket on the TV...)

Comments

[daveon.livejournal.com]

Only thing to watch for, based on my experience is the sound channel. If you're using separate sound out it's fine, but if you had been using the sound input next to the VGA input you'd find that the HDMI channel expects the sound to be integrated.

Other than that what you're proposing works fine.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

I'm using separate sound to a home cinema amp, so no problems. Thanks!

[speakr2customrs.livejournal.com]

I have a spare 320 Mb GeForce 8800 GTS PCI-Express graphics card, with DVI output, lying around unused; you can have it for the cost of the postage. I'm afraid I don't know anything about the conversion from DVI to HDMI aspect.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Thanks, but it needs to be a half height card and if possible silent, since I'm using it for home cinema, and looking at the reviews that appears to be full height and has a fan.

[speakr2customrs.livejournal.com]

Yes, it's full height (pretty massive) and has a fan. However it occurred to me that the card that it replaced was also PCI Express and is still around; I've just dug it out and it's half height AND HAS AN HDMI OUTPUT! A GeForce 8500 GT, 512 Mb, and never ever used - I had it replaced by the faster 8800 GTS in the shop when I bought the computer but they gave it to me anyway. It does have a fan, though, and as it is unused I have no idea how quiet it is. The 8800 GTS was actually extremely quiet despite its huge fan. You could have the 8500 for the cost of the postage - it's no use to me.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

The one I was looking at apparently isn't suitable. How much do you think postage would be? Even if that one turns out to be a bit too noisy, it would let me try the idea out.