rsilverman asks:
"I recently bought the 23" Apple Cinema Display, which
I am using on my TiBook, and I'm loving it! Now, I would like to also connect it to my Intel box running Win2k (perhaps ultimately using a digital video switch box). I thought this might be relatively simple -- I
went out and bought an AGP video card with the same chip set as is in some Macs, the nVidia GeForce Ti, and it listed the monitor's highest
resolution as supported. No go. Tried the Radeon 7500 -- also no go. The monitor backlight powers up, but no picture.
Then I read some more, and judging from what I was able to find (and don't really
understand), the monitor's resolution (1920x1200) is near the edge of what
can be done using the DVI standard. Does anyone out there know more about this? Got it working?"
"Cards tend to support that resolution and higher only with analog signalling, not digital. I've seen claims that it can be supported using some kind of non-standard timing ('pushing data during the blanking interval'), which I assume is a driver issue. Then there's 'dual-link DVI' -- using two of the usual DVI data links in parallel (still over a single connector, just using more pins). The Apple specs do not mention whether the monitor is single- or dual-link. At the moment, my best bet appears to be the 3DLabs Wildcat VP or III cards (one of which supports dual-link). However, they're very expensive, and I'm still not sure it will work."
I think you are looking for (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Corrected Link (Score:2)
Re:Corrected Link (Score:1)
Re:I think you are looking for (Score:2)
Troll=1, Interesting=1, Overrated=1, Total=3.
Re:I think you are looking for (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Haiku for Apple (Score:2)
Sun is setting on your sys
Apple Comp. is dead
You never learned how
to write a haiku without
abbreviations?
ARE YOU HAPPY, PROF. FOOBAR104? (Score:1, Interesting)
DVI big flat panel is tricky (Score:3, Informative)
I use an nVidia Quadro4 900XGL to drive a Samsumg T240 (24" HDTV display) [edgereview.com] under Red Hat 7.2, but with the nVidia kernel drivers.
When we were researching this, it was important to find out whether the DVI interface on the graphics card was really capable of driving 1920x1200 digitally and not just through its analog connectors (DVI-I means integrated DVI-D and DVI-A (analog)), since many smart displays will just fall back onto the analog signal if the digital signal is not there.
IIRC, the fundamental issue was how good the TMDS transmitter was on the video card. It seemed like, very roughly, RAMDAC frequency: analog picture quality, TMDS frequency: digital picture quality. Many topped out at 1280x1024, some were good for 1600x1200, but you had to look very carefully for one capable of 1920x1200. Eg, there were some medical quality image viewing hardware that were quite expensive.
The situation has probably improved over the last 6 months, so you shouldn't have quite so hard a time finding a good video card.
Re:DVI big flat panel is tricky (Score:2)
For my current computer I purchased a CTX PV880C which was spec'ed to do 1280x1024 at 75Hz (and has a DVI-digital input, unlike many other cheap panels...), and a Matrox G550 to drive it (it was the cheapest card I could find that advertised Linux drivers and DVI digital output), but was initally surprised that if I run it at much more than 60Hz then I get interference / noise appearing on the screen (but not in analogue mode).
Not that I'm complaining much - I'd have thought that on an LCD anything above cinama-film rate (around 24Hz?) would be sufficient.
DVI to ADC Adapter. (Score:2, Informative)
Sigh.... (Score:2)
Re:Sigh.... (Score:1)
Re:Sigh.... (Score:2, Funny)
Yeah, when I saw it Dude, I think I filled the cup. [imdb.com]
GFK's
Re:Sigh.... (Score:1)
While it is not the dual set-up diaplayed on that page, it definitely is much more productive than any one screen.
Obligatory picture [vampy-alumni.org] actually showing three monitors off one computer.
I was in an Apple store last week, and was able to play with one of the 23" Cinema Displays. Those are extremely nice...
Re:Sigh.... (Score:1)
I guess you broke the bank on the computers?
Hehehehehehehe
Tom
Re:Sigh.... (Score:2)
Re:DVI to ADC Adapter. (Score:2, Informative)
nVidia gForce 4 Ti is working for me (Score:3, Informative)
Re:nVidia gForce 4 Ti is working for me (Score:2, Interesting)
GeForce Ti 4600. It didn't work at all -- the monitor powered up, blinked
a cursor once, then nothing at all during the PC's power-up sequence. I
fiddled with various BIOS settings, all to no avail. It would drive a
standard monitor off the VGA port, but no joy from the DVI port.
But, nVidia doesn't make their own cards, right? They sell the chips to
card makers. So perhaps it's some card difference -- exactly what brand
of card are you using?
Thanks, - Richard
Re:nVidia gForce 4 Ti is working for me (Score:1)
nVidia gForce 4 Ti is working for me too. (Score:1)
I would hazzard a guess that W2K is doing something at boot that is standing in your way since it was pretty straightforward to get this up and running under X and the VESA framebuffer (sure ain't matroxfb though). The monitor will even respond to standard VGA modes as I have access to the bios, etc... If you're losing the screen after the bios hands off to W2K then your card should work with some configuration. The alternate case frankly stumps me unless you have a 3rd party ADC-DVI adapter, though even that possibility is confusing as ADC really is just DVI + USB + power. The pins for each protocol are right there.
There is one hitch to using any Apple monitor (excepting the 22" Cinema Display?) on a non-apple box. You lose control of the backlight so this gorgeous monitor can't be adjusted for brightness and seems to default to 100% on (which is too bright to make true black). I think this is done over VESA's DDC lines and have looked through the PPC Linux kernel sources for a way to do this on i386 but the meat of the matter may be buried in an Apple rom either on the motherboard or the video card. The only tweaking utility I could find on FreshMeat was something called read-edid that can find the monitor's identity but then barfs. Does anyone out there have any code that we could play around with on this subject?
Re:nVidia gForce 4 Ti is working for me too. (Score:1)
inexpensive) card; however, I'm puzzled why I didn't work for me. As I
said, I did try the Xtasy nVidia GeForce4 Ti. I got no picture at all,
ever -- just single glimpse of a blinking cursor at power-on, which
immediately disappeared, then a blank screen. I also got this response
from VisionTek support (the card maker):
this. Are you using AGP or PCI?
I know about the monitor control issue, but since I have a Mac connected
also, this isn't a problem...
Re:nVidia gForce 4 Ti is working for me (Score:1)
To make a long story short -- I had to upgrade the BIOS. After that, the
nVidia board worked perfectly.
Thanks for all the input; without the assurance that these cards did
actually work in this setup, I would not have gone back and done the extra
testing/searching that turned up the solution.
Delicious (Score:3, Interesting)
My Sun workstation in the office, has a 24" HDTV screen. It is a good 'ole CRT with an analog input. 1920x1200 resolution. Lots of real estate for opening up lots of windows. It really is a nice perk, so I don't blame you one bit for trying to get this to work!
Although, to be honest, I haven't done very much in the way of digital video playback on it, so I really don't know what I am (or am not) missing by an LCD screen with DVI. Maybe it is time I take that television screen home and seeing what a PC can do with it.
On a related note... anyone know how to hook up a mid-priced DVD player to an analog or DVI HDTV aspect ratio computer monitor? I'm wondering just how crisp it can be.
Re:Delicious (Score:3, Interesting)
Anything "mid-priced" will output some form of NTSC video, which is horrible in all incarnations. Even if you get -really lucky- and score a VGA-esque RGB output, you'll be ill-equipped to see "just how crisp it can be," because the DACs on your Sun's video hardware are significantly better than anything inside of a sanely-priced DVD player.
Better to pick up a DVD drive, and some good software. This is, after all, a computer monitor. Drive it with a computer. At 1920x1200.
You'll get, depending on hardware and software, some very fine scaling and framerate conversion and filtering. Things will be great, as good as it gets. If your Sun can't do it, a cheap PC with an appropriate DVD-supporting video card will still be cheaper than a super-high-res progressive scan DVD player.
Whereas, a DVD player will only drive the monitor at a couple of fixed frequencies and resolutions, which may or may not include overscan support, and thus show a chance of being incredibly poor-looking on a computer display - and that's only if you get the interfaces to talk to eachother at all.
That all said, if you're insistant, this box [extron.com] will do what you want with just about any analog signal you can come up with. And since noone seems to want to make an analog -> DVI converter, things get even more hairy. Something like this this adapter card [extron.com] along with this way-overkill video switcher [extron.com] might do it.
You don't want to ask what any of that stuff costs, though. There's reasons why the price isn't listed on the web page. (other stuff probably exists which does similar things with varying amounts of overkill, but Extron has a reputation for being the best. If you wanna see "just how crisp it can be" in such an arrangement, look no further.)
Re:Delicious (Score:1)
An S-video output will be far crisper in this setup, since although RGB is the better format on paper, the nature of the original signal (the data coming off the DVD) and the way the RGB and s-video signals are made up will give s-video the edge.
A DVD uses component video, made up of luminance, and two colour difference signals, plus sync (sometimes).
To get from component to s-video, you don't need to do anything to the luminance signal, all you have to do is combine the chominance channels and sort out some timing.
To convert to RGB, you have to do some serious work.
In that price range, s-video wins every time, especially when converting from component sources.
To make it into a digital signal... Well, it's been discussed. Only for the hobbiest with a shedload of cash. Doing it with a computer and a decent hardware decoder is the way to do it if you want to go down that road.
DVI-ADC (Score:3, Informative)
The Apple-made DVI to ADC converter will allow you to run your monitor on PCs...
Here is a link to it on Apple's website [apple.com]. You can order the part from any Apple store. Most carry them in stock. This also will connect to your USB port to make the ports on the monitor function normally.
Try Gefen (Score:4, Informative)
I would give Gefen [gefen.com] a serious look. Their DVI to ADC Conversion Box [gefen.com] is the only one on the market that I know of that claims support for the 23" HD Cinema Display. Apple's, Dr. Bott's, and the Formac converter boxes all disclaim use with the 23" HD display. If nothing else, they should be able to help you with selecting the right graphics card.
Coming in late on this but... (Score:4, Informative)
What do you think? (Score:4, Funny)
Then we go to his house and steal the display.
Re:What do you think? (Score:1)
good idea, I call dibs on his TiBook