HDMI - graphic card recommendation?

[rreischl]

Hello,

I would greatly appreciate any help!!! This is all pretty foreign to me . . . and I'm trying to help my parents!

My parents are remodeling their kitchen and purchased a Sony Model KDL-32XBR4 television. They are purchasing a PC to hide in an island in the center of the room, and are currently trying to figure out what connections they will possibly need in the future to go between the PC and the TV, etc. They are also wondering what graphic card would be the best for the connection to the HDMI port on the TV? Does the PC need to be high-performance in order to support a great graphics card? They mainly just want to be able to display photos/videos/dvds/etc on the TV using HDMI. There may be a few games played and the internet will be used. Also (sorry if this makes no sense!) they are wondering if an xbox (or other game systems) can be hooked up (looking ahead to needs of grandkids LOL) to the PC, then viewed on the TV? Does this impact which video card should be purchased? Anything else as far as future expandability that anyone can think of would be greatly appreciated too! Main concern is high quality video connection from PC to TV. Thank you for reading this!

Renee

BTW, the TV has the following i/o:

HDMI IN 1 – HDMI
HDMI IN 3 – HDMI/R-AUDIO-L
PC IN (RGB/AUDIO)
VIDEO IN 1 – S VIDEO
VIDEO IN 1/3 – VIDEO/L(MONO)-AUDIO-R
COMPONENT IN – 1/2 (1080P/1080I/720P/480P/480I)/L-AUDIO-R
AUDIO OUT – (VAR/FIX)
DIGITAL OUT – (OPTICAL)
AC IN
DMeX/SERVICE
VHF/UHF/CABLE
HEADPHONE JACK
VIDEO IN 2 – R-AUDIO-L(MONO)/VIDEO
HDMI IN 2 – HDMI

Planned connections to the TV are:
1 component video to an onkyo receiver
connections needed to PC

 

[Alphastream]

This board seems to be pretty terrible. Lots of questions, but few people sharing expertise.

I spent a lot of time on the issue, as you can see if you look in this forum at the post I made today.

Basically, it should not matter greatly if you have a video card with DVI or HDMI. The difference is either nill or insignificant. The more important bit is likely the overall performance of the audio and video cards and then making sure the connections will remain digital if that is desired for quality (which will be lower than a normal stereo/HD TV pretty much regardless of what you do).

My suggestion is going with good cards (the 8800 GT is great, has DVI outputs) and Soundblaster XFi (either find the optical mini to digital optical conversion or buy the Digital I/O module). You would then run digital optical cable for sound and DVI for video (with a DVI to HDMI adapter if needed by your monitor/TV). If digital optical is not an option, scale it down from there (digital coax is an option with the Digital I/O module, or RCA for an analog sound signal).

Hope that helps!

 

[hcforde]

Look at the new ATI HD3850 cards. cheaper then the Nvidia and better quality picture. Also they are made for this kind of thing and come with DVI to HDMI adapters. If your TV will accept sound through HDMI this card will deliver it therefore cleaning up a mess of extra cables.