22+" Monitor & TV Replacement

[ifinishwhatistar]

I am looking to replace my beautiful 24" CRT Toshiba television and 19" CRT Viewsonic p95f monitor with a single large, widescreen LCD. I would like to use it with my digital cable box to watch HDTV and my PC to play games, watch DVDs, etc. Any suggestions?

Some of my considerations: I will probably need HDCP at some point. Also, I'm worried about these enormous resolutions. I have a good GPU (GeForce 7800 GS) but I doubt I'll be able to run new games at 1920x1200, or even at 1600x1024 for that matter.

I read THG's thing on the new 16:9 monitors, and saw that they were pretty thrilled with the Sony SDM-P234. Has anyone actually seen this in action? Is there any choice about how to handle resolutions, i.e. can you choose black bars or does it automatically stretch lower resolutions?

 

[Anchoku]

Check the manufacturer's web site for downloadable user manuals. About your video card, if the game graphics update too slowly, reduce the resolution by switching to lower, non-native, resolutions.

 

[ifinishwhatistar]

Thanks. Wow, apparently the SDM-P234 won't display anything less than 1600x1200 through DVI-D. Is that standard behavior for these monitors, and does it mean there's no way to watch 720p or 480p from my cable box? If so, I'm going to need to look into some other monitors...Any suggestions?

 

[Anchoku]

Generally, all monitors display 640x480 for BIOS post messages and a variety of other resolutions. Unfortunately, the Sony product manual is very unclear about its ability to display standard resolutions. DVI ranges from 28 to 75KHz horizontal refresh giving it the ability to drive 720p as its lowest resolution. Too bad Sony couldn't just state which resolutions/timings the monitor is happy with. Don't get it if you feel comfortable with the spec'. Don't think for a minute Sony makes the display. They probably don't assemble the monitor, either.

 

[ifinishwhatistar]

Thanks, yeah I think I won't get it with that ambiguity. Actually, I happened to find this this Firing Squad article on HDCP-compliant LCDs. As it turns out, the only monitors in the size-range that I'm interested in are the Viewsonic VP2330WB, which they thought was pretty bad for video/gaming, the Samsung 242mp (which has stuff I don't want like a tuner, speakers, etc.), and the Samsung 244t. The 244t looks like a great choice, and I've read some pretty ecstatic reviews of it elsewhere. One thing I read is that through DVI/VGA/Component, the only scaling options are "Wide" and "4:3," and since the 244t is 16:10, all 16:9 inputs get stretched! A look at the manual showed that those are the only options, but I'm skeptical as to what it means. Can anyone confirm that the 244t automatically stretches 16:9 inputs to fit the 16:10 screen, with no alternative?