If you intended to buy a LCD TV for HTPC, I have some findings here. As the heading of my blog suggests, we are going to build a Low Cost HTPC. The LCD TV we are talking about will be the 720p stuff that would normally give you a resolution of 1366x768 and they are priced under $1000. Full HD 1920x1080p stuff is out of the topic here as they are way too expensive for ordinary people like you and me.
We know 720p means 1280x720 and we think the corresponding 720p LCD TV should come with this resolution, but the fact is that it does not. LCD TV manufacturers use 1366x768 panels for the display instead of 1280x720. According to them, the video playback will be expanded or ‘overscaned’ a bit to fill up the screen of 1366x768 if the video source is 1280x720. That means for 720p LCD TV, you will never get a ‘pixel to pixel’ mapping for video playback even for a 1280x720 source. I am no expert in this field but after I did some research over the internet, I found that even the so-called full HD 1920x1080p LCD are also facing the same problem. So, do not believe in ‘pixel to pixel’ mapping in HTPC as what you see on screen is not what you think you would see. But believe me, the video playback on a 720p LCD TV, say 32", is still great and you don’t really notice any difference if compared with a 1080p from a viewing distance of 8 to 10 feet.
720p is fine but 1366x768 is an odd resolution as PC won’t support it unless you do some fine tuning. You should stick to 1360x768 when you connect your TV to your PC as this is the best resolution a PC can offer. But to do it your LCD TV must be able to support it first. As far as I know, not all 720p LCD TVs support 1360x768. For instance, Toshiba Regza 32WL66E only supports 640x480, 800x600, 1024x768 and 1280x1024 via D-sub.
Posts
