In the past year or so, computer graphic cards have begun to sprout HMDI ports allowing you to connect your PC to a High Definition (HD) TV via HDMI cables.
I think it was the Sapphire Radeon X1600 Pro that was announced in March 2006 that was the first HDMI graphics card on the market.
While this probably does not mean much to anyone now as there is a lack of HD content available on the internet, we are slowly seeing this begin to change with more internet TV episodes beginning to stream in HD.
TVTonic, for example, has a library of vodcasts that can be watched on a media center PC, with many of them being available in HD and perfect for watching on a plasma television.
New Graphics Cards with HDMI
If you have a new graphics card you should hopefully be fitted with a HDMI output which makes everything very easy. Just a simple HDMI > HDMI cable will have your PC connected to your HDTV. eBusinessCables has a well-priced selection of these cables available in its video cable section.
One thing to watch out for is overscan which is a black area surrounding the viewing area, which you usually don’t see on a PC, but can often show up on a HDTV due to resolution incompatibilities.
Older Graphics Cards – DVI or VGA Output
Unfortunately if you are working with an older PC graphics card you may only have a DVI output, or even worse just a VGA output.
DVI
With a DVI output on your graphics card you will need a DVI > HDMI adapter cable. Unfortunately eBusinessCables doesn’t seem to stock any DVI to HDMI adapter cables.
VGA
If you have a VGA output then you have the following situation, its either impossible or quite expensive and in this situation you are better off buying a new graphics card altogether.
Note: eBusinessCables.com paid WebTVWire to be discussed in this post – all opinions are honest and were not influenced by the payment.
