Blu-ray 1080p playback on a 1680x1050 PC monitor

Bacon000

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Feb 28, 2009
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I just upgraded my PC recently, and am now considering finishing the upgrade off with a Blu-ray drive. The video card is fully capable of it (4850 Radeon), but I'm more concerned about my monitor and it's Blu-ray playback abilities.

It's HDCP compliant via DVI, but it's a "1050" resolution as opposed to 1080 (it's resolution is 1680x1050, obviously). I want to play Blu-ray movies on my PC, but I want it to downscale from 1080 (to 1050) and not upscale from 720. Is this possible? Or is this scaling not possible at all, and will I be stuck with movies that don't fit on my monitor correctly?

The monitor in question is the Samsung 226BW 22". I've looked around the web for a clear answer to this, but I've found a huge range of answers. Some people say it'll downscale to 1050 and I'll lose very little image quality, others say it'll upscale from 720 and I'll get a grainy image, and others say it won't work at all. Need answers before I fork over $100 for the BR drive!
 

baddad

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Oct 20, 2006
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If you want to see 1920x1080 you have to have a monitor that's 24" or more, or you will have to see everything in 1280x720, these are HD formats for blue-ray play back..
 


Not true. If you playback a blu ray on a 1680x1050, it can take 1080p and downscale it - there aren't just discrete resolution steps that are allowed.
As for the software, I use Cyberlink PowerDVD Ultra - it came with my bluray drive, and works quite well. I have tested it on my 22", and it is definitely sharper than 720p.
 

Bacon000

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Yeah I'm not following you with the actual physical size of the monitor being a factor. I think you need to maybe check your facts there =)

I ordered the blu-ray drive, so we'll see what happens! I do hope that it downscales 1080p to 1050 like you folks said instead of just stretching out 720p to fit the monitor. Either way it'll be a great picture, but it'd be even nicer if it just downscales slightly instead of upscaling quite a bit.

 

tleonx

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On a screen smaller than 50inches, you wouldn't noticed the difference between 720p and 1080p anyway...