1080i on 1680x1050 monitor?

Question

how does 1080i signal look when viewing on a 1680x1050 monitor?

it should give u small minor black bars on top and bottom, but hows the quality? does the monitor know how to "Smooth it out"?

is it good? or am i better off geting a 24" monitor with 1920x1200 resolution?

Answer 1

It will only work if the monitor supports downscaling, otherwise you will just get an 'out of range' error message.

If it does support downscaling I would suspect that it will distort the image to fill the screen. Showing 16:9 on a 16:10 screen should not be that noticeable.

Should you get the bigger, higher res screen? Why not?

I would suspect that it will still expand the image height to fill the screen (a 11% distortion). There may be an option to not scale the image, you would have to scan through the user manual to find out. But those are generally available online, so you could decide before you buy.

Answer 2

Any time you are downscaling a higher resolution to fit a lower resolution screen, the image will look unclear (looks like it's been scaled). Unfortunately, I have found very few LCD panels that build in extremely high quality scaling circuitry. The only panels that ever had this technology were the SGI panels that were built long ago and were extremely pricey.

Consumer grade LCD panels do not offer this quality of scaling technology, so the picture usually looks mediocre at best. This, of course, all assumes that your 1680x1050 panel is even capable of 1080i downscaling. If not, the PS3 will likely show the next resolution down (720p - 1366x768) which will end up scaling the image up to fit the 1680x1050 monitor and will look blocky and pixelated.

If you are wanting a pristine and perfect image, then you will need to find a monitor capable of 1920x1080 (1080i/p). Most computer monitors are still only supporting 1680x1050. You may need to shop LCD TV panels with HDMI to find one that can support 1080.

Note that 1080i/p is a TV standard resolution for HDTV. It has not fully been adopted by computer makers as a standard for computer displays. This is why LCD computer monitors and video cards still primarily support primarily DVI and 1680x1050. Although, you might be able to find a few computer LCD monitors that support 1080i/p. But remember, 1080p is an HDTV standard and not a computer standard.