Devin Johnston Posted May 5, 2008 Share Posted May 5, 2008 At my office the VP's will bring clients by my desk to show them animations of past projects to demonstrate what we're capable of. It's always a hassle because I have to move my monitors around and not everyone can see them if there is a large group. My boss said that it would be cool if there were a large LCD screen behind me so that we could show large groups these animations, I agree . Anyway I want to look into it to find the best setup, what kind of screen would work best with which kind of video card. I want to be able to control it all from my desktop without having to move cables around or any of that mess. What do you suggest? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJLynn Posted May 5, 2008 Share Posted May 5, 2008 How large do you want it, how much space do you have to put it in and how will you mount it? LCD TVs are cheap and easy but plasmas and DLP/SXRD give you better color quality. Also, look for something with 1080P resolution that can accept 1080P over HDMI, and use either a video card that supports HDMI or a DVI to HDMI cable. If you want to go nuts, first look for a professional TV calibrator in your area, see what he recommends and get it calibrated. I have some friends here who all own Samsung DLP TVs because they know a calibrator who's a Samsung expert and get him to do their calibrations, and their picture quality is nuts. I'm less crazy than them so I got a Sony SXRD set on sale and just did my own user-serviceable-color tweaking, and have no complaints at all. My laptop has DVI out but it's not set up for digital audio over HDMI so I have a cheap cable I got off Amazon for DVI to HDMI (don't bother with expensive cable for this unless you need more than 10' or so) and a separate audio cable and the quality is excellent. One visualization firm around here has two plasma screens in the front area hooked up to AppleTV boxes, which also seems like a good option because all you need is a wireless or wired network connection and you can have it anywhere, and you can convert to the format using Quicktime Pro or any of several free programs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Devin Johnston Posted May 5, 2008 Author Share Posted May 5, 2008 Probably 42" LCD or Plasma I like LCD because there's no burn in but Plasma has deeper colors so we'll have to decide. We'll probably mount it using a regular TV mount attached to our workstations some how; we've got an office full of designers who should be able to figure it out. HDMI seems to be the way to go, but how will it react to a dual display setup? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJLynn Posted May 5, 2008 Share Posted May 5, 2008 You'd have to check on your specific video card but usually if you've got an extra DVI port you can just use a DVI to HDMI cable and make it monitor 2, it will act like a DVI monitor. I wouldn't worry too much about burn in with plasma, it takes an awful lot of display time to make that happen and if you look at the displays with a trained eye you'll definitely see that plasmas usually produce better color. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Devin Johnston Posted May 5, 2008 Author Share Posted May 5, 2008 I've quickly looked at some TV's on Dell's web site, they have something called "PC interface VGA (HD-15)", I'm not sure what that is but it sounds like if you want to hook up a PC to it your stuck with VGA quality which wouldn’t be HD. Am I reading this wrong and since I'm going to be using an HDMI cable anyway does it matter? Any recommendations on Video card, I'll also be using this as my primary Viz workstation so it needs a lot of power. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJLynn Posted May 5, 2008 Share Posted May 5, 2008 You can use a VGA cable with a lot of HDTV models and get whatever resolution it will allow, sometimes up to 1920x1200 even, but you'd be in analog VGA mode which would be lower quality (hook up your LCD monitor with a VGA cable instead of DVI and you'll see what I mean). HDMI carries a signal quality similar to DVI, it's what you want. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SandmanNinja Posted May 5, 2008 Share Posted May 5, 2008 Why not burn to a DVD and show the animations in a proper Client environment - i.e. conference room - with a nice table, chairs, plasma, girl-with-somewhat-short-skirt-serving-Long-Island-Ice-Teas... Man, I ought to be in Marketing... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Devin Johnston Posted May 6, 2008 Author Share Posted May 6, 2008 Why not burn to a DVD and show the animations in a proper Client environment - i.e. conference room - with a nice table, chairs, plasma, girl-with-somewhat-short-skirt-serving-Long-Island-Ice-Teas... Man, I ought to be in Marketing... I like it! This is what I've been looking at: http://www.samsclub.com/shopping/navigate.do?dest=5&item=395248 http://www.nvidia.com/object/geforce_9800gx2.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJLynn Posted May 6, 2008 Share Posted May 6, 2008 Both those things look really nice, but I think it's only fair to tell you I can get my laptop to do exactly what you want to do using a Radeon 1600 and I use a desktop that does it on a regular basis using a FireGL v5100 that's at least 3 years old. You don't need to have a card that says it's "HD" to run an HDTV as a monitor because an HDTV is a monitor, and the DVI video cards made in the last few years can run its resolutions flawlessly, so I bet you've already got a video card that will handle this. All this labelling-video-cards-as-HD is mostly marketing, the only advantage I've ever been able to find is that some of these newer ones can pass through the audio on the HDMI cable which is sometimes important in home theater. But I still think that if you combine Joel's idea with my AppleTV idea, that will yield the best results. Make sure you handle the short-skirt-girl interviews yourself. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Devin Johnston Posted May 6, 2008 Author Share Posted May 6, 2008 But I still think that if you combine Joel's idea with my AppleTV idea, that will yield the best results. Make sure you handle the short-skirt-girl interviews yourself. Love it! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bluedogok Posted May 10, 2008 Share Posted May 10, 2008 There are many video cards coming out with HDMI connections, most of the render cards have screen modes for sending the signal out to a HDTV. The VGA connector is usually limited in what modes they offer, I found this out when connecting my laptop to my big screen at home so I built a HTPC with an on-board Radeon chip with HDMI output and it works great. I'm not going to render anything on it but it does great as a general computer showing both local and streaming video. I mainly built it because I have the hi-res MotoGP subscription and that way I can watch it on a 52" instead of a computer monitor At the office we have a 60" Sharp Aquos LCD in the conference room with a MiniPC mounted on the wall behind it for general use. When we need more power we can use Remote Deskptop to login to the dedicated rendering computer and switch the LCD to an input. It is setup for dual-monitors to mirror like a laptop instead of a desktop dual monitor system. This FireGL card (not sure of which model) has two DVI connectors, so we have a DVI to HDMI cable for the second output. So far we haven't really needed to go to the other computer, the MiniPC has pretty good performance for its purpose and is a pretty good box for the price. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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