HDMI without an Alpha?

Computer, TV, digital projector connectivity and associated slideshow, framing, AV/DVD creation software
883robert
Acolyte
Posts: 9
Joined: Mon Jan 05, 2009 10:19 pm

HDMI without an Alpha?

Unread post by 883robert »

Hi
Just read through last year's slugfest between David and Sonolta on how Sony cameras interface to hd tv's (http://www.photoclubalpha.com/forum/vie ... f=42&t=701" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;).
I have my own, hopefuilly simpler question. Is it possible to get the same stunning results as I get when I connect my A700 to a 1080 HD tv, but using my laptop to connect? I want to present photos to clients after I've finished sorting and carried out minimal processing in LIghtroom. I don't want the clients to see the dud shots which they currently see when I show them the shots direct from the camera.
My laptop is a Sony Vaio which has no hdmi output. Would buying a laptop with hdmi output solve my problem? And is there a cheaper way to display my photos?
thanks in advance
Robert
Javelin
Emperor of a Minor Galaxy
Posts: 1856
Joined: Wed Jul 16, 2008 4:51 pm

Re: HDMI without an Alpha?

Unread post by Javelin »

heres one that would work for what you want.

http://www.amazon.com/AVerMedia-QuickPl ... B0000CD08Z" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

there are others. thats reported to be a good quality converter. I saw an ad recently for a wireless one but I can't seem to find it now.

Here is the wireless one. might be a little less portable than what you want though. that site has other products on it too so maybe have a look around for diferent ideas.
883robert
Acolyte
Posts: 9
Joined: Mon Jan 05, 2009 10:19 pm

Re: HDMI without an Alpha?

Unread post by 883robert »

Thanks for the link. However I should have stated my needs more explicitly. I'm looking for a way to get the same quality on the tv as I see when I connect my Sony A700 to a Sony tv via hdmi. From my pc the Avermedia will accept only analogue input, and I'm guessing that the conversion from digital to analogue and maybe back to digital means the result won't be the same as direct-from-camera. They'll probably be the same as using the RCA video cables that came with the camera.
Thanks for your time.
Robert
Javelin
Emperor of a Minor Galaxy
Posts: 1856
Joined: Wed Jul 16, 2008 4:51 pm

Re: HDMI without an Alpha?

Unread post by Javelin »

if your laptop only has a serial connector for an external monitor then thats all you will get is analog. however it does give you component output and you will get 480I output. if you looking for 1080P output you will have to get a laptop that has DVI or HDMI connector built in. some laptops have this already (but i'm not sure it'll give you 1080P.. maybe just 720p) or you could get something like this which is very new and theres not much info about it.

http://thehdpix.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

this will give you 720P
David Kilpatrick
Site Admin
Posts: 5985
Joined: Sat May 19, 2007 1:14 pm
Location: Kelso, Scotland
Contact:

Re: HDMI without an Alpha?

Unread post by David Kilpatrick »

If you have not already bought the HDTV itself, there are several options. The LG LG42 7000 model has true 1080p, 100Hz, and a USB interface. You can just use a USB memory stick, and navigation is provided via the TV's AV functions. Other models have SD card slots - so far, I do not know of any with CF or MemoryStick slots.

The Sony configuration which works best is a current Bravia set with the Photo-TV function, combined with the PlayStation 3 Pro. This will accept your A700 memory cards directly, or you can create CD/DVD/BluRay discs containing the photos. The Playstation remote control provides incredible seamless, flowing movement round the picture including zooming and instead of just using the basic HD function (1920 x 1080) you can use the entire JPEG - zoom in, scroll round. Sony's own staff use the PS3 to show the pictures.

I still do not have the large HDTV I want, just a small 22 inch 720p model. I know my budget, and I know the features I want - the LG has them, I would prefer a Sony but so far, that means over £1000 and it's too much.

David
Javelin
Emperor of a Minor Galaxy
Posts: 1856
Joined: Wed Jul 16, 2008 4:51 pm

Re: HDMI without an Alpha?

Unread post by Javelin »

Don't let our buddy Don lead you down a garden path. He didn't read your post and only replied here because he saw an opportunity to insult some people.

space for Don to quote and put his i'm clueless statement

He's sending you to cableing hell with yardsale equipment. he also ignored that you said "laptop" and "1080 HDTV" or you can buy a monitor like Don said and have everyone crowd around your desk to see their pictures at 1024x768 from your laptop if thats it's higest resolution and stepping on their toes while you rig the cable. VGA can run a max of 30' at high resolution with out putting amplifiers or cat5 converters on them .30' isn't much if you want to not have it across your floor.

space for Don to quote and put his i'm clueless statement and add in 30 links from everywhere you can imagine just to confuse things


Here is a good resource for you to get some facts on what to do. and ask questions of people who have done it right.It's a good site for this type of information from HD enthusiasts...

http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/showthr ... aptop+HDTV" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

space for Don to quote And tell you how 60k members over there are clueless
Javelin
Emperor of a Minor Galaxy
Posts: 1856
Joined: Wed Jul 16, 2008 4:51 pm

Re: HDMI without an Alpha?

Unread post by Javelin »

The fact is this. If he has any HDTV (he did say 1080P) which is modern then it will only display those resolutions with HDCP compliant devices. Dsub conectors if there is one which I doubt will be downsampled to 480. the source has to come through DVI or HDMI conntectors (More types soon) His Sony laptop likely has onboard video so no swaping video cards .. actually I haven't seen a 3rd party video card on a laptop in years and be surprised if anyone is still doing that. same with the VGA connector on the HDTVs having one without crippling it would violate their HDCP license and they couldn't use HDMI. God it was so simple:

Q how do I get my laptop to work on my 1080P HDTV and be stunning (NOT DOWNSAMPLED)
A Heres a scan converter. heres a wireless one "Bob's your uncle"

Now you want him to kluge together a desktop with 25' of VGA cable and find an old pre hdmi TV to play it on ? is that right?
Sonolta wrote: 1) I am using a 4 year old bottom-of-the-line Dell B110 system with it's standard VGA output connected directly to my HDTV via a $10 25ft VGA cable! The onboard video puts out 1920 x 1080 (or less) and connects directly to the D-sub (VGA) jack on the back of my 32 inch HDTV.

2) No adapters, no cables, no fussing, just HD quality for $10 bucks...all I do is use my input button on my remote!


3) No desk, no monitor, just HDTV on my 32 inch at HD resolutions.


BTW....I am a huge HD fan!

<Snip irrelevent stuff>

Javelin is still clueless....he sometimes confuses analog, digital, vga, dsub, laptop, desktop, hdmi, dvi, and HDTV..

-Sonolta
David Kilpatrick
Site Admin
Posts: 5985
Joined: Sat May 19, 2007 1:14 pm
Location: Kelso, Scotland
Contact:

Re: HDMI without an Alpha?

Unread post by David Kilpatrick »

I've just been using the Sanyo 22 inch HDTV with the Nikon D3X and the Alpha 900. First of all, almost anything will be superior to actually using the Alpha as a playback method - navigation is there, but it's not smooth as you must use the remote handset controls and the result is that things happen in steps, like scrolling and zooming. The best playback I have seen from Alpha files allows very smooth panning round a picture, and I'm pretty sure this was from the Playstation. Second point, the HDTV is not of course 2:3 ratio and three things can happen - either the picture may get stretched to fit, or black bars will appear at the ends, or it will be enlarged slightly and cropped top and bottom.

The Nikon and the Alpha behave differently with the Nikon being more sensitive to what kind of HD TV display is attached. Using your TV as a computer monitor (as Sonolta suggests) automatically prevents any unwanted cropping or distortion happening. Playback on a TV equipped with USB or a card slot (and there are now plenty of these) might work any way, no idea. The LG TV I wanted also had Bluetooth picture reception from mobile phones - or direct from my iMac, in theory. I have no idea how this would work, how to pair the TV with the iMac, it would be a matter of trust - buy it and hope the software could be configured. It might also be possible to display work from an iPhone or iPod.

Not connected with your requirement - using the HDTV as a monitor for studio shooting with Live View on the Nikon is impressive, it just switches the rear screen display straight to the HDTV, and it adjusts for the 16:9 ratio (the rear screen display is not normally 16:9). You see a good preview including focusing and all the normal controls. Playback obviously works the same way. You can do 'tethered shooting' with the D3/D3X this way, and it uses standard big HDMI cables, not mini-HD (so I have had to buy two different cables). It is not really 'tethered shooting' as the images are stored on the camera.

Using the HDTV with the Alpha 900 for 'Intelligent Preview' studio shooting is nothing like as successful. The Alpha does not change the aspect ratio, the 4:3 shape of the rear screen gets stretched into an elongated 16:9 (I was not able to find a TV setting I could get at to prevent this, but I am sure some sets will allow HD to be over-ridden and show the normal shape). The Intelligent Preview is also shown stretched, making it almost useless for judging the photo or adjustments. But after the pic is taken, playback shows the image correctly - a different screen mode. The 900 is best tethered to a laptop instead, where everything works properly.

David
User avatar
pakodominguez
Minister with Portfolio
Posts: 2306
Joined: Tue May 22, 2007 5:38 pm
Location: NYC
Contact:

Re: HDMI without an Alpha?

Unread post by pakodominguez »

Sonolta wrote: 1) I use the A700 on my HDTV
2) I use my XBOX 360 for gaming and imaging on my HDTV.
3) I own the best HD satellite receiver on the planet.
4) I own the best HD-DVR on the planet.
5) I also use an HD aerial
6) I receive over 120 HD channels here at the house.
7) I have a killer HD concert collection!
I think this is the minimum kit you need for enduring winter in Illinois
:-p
My older brother did his Master and PHD at Urbana - Champaign. He feels better now that he lives in: Boise, ID!

I thought Don you were working hard in order to make your first million by the end of the month, nice to see you did get some time for this humble forum.

Regards
Pako
------------
http://www.pakodominguez.photo/blog" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Javelin
Emperor of a Minor Galaxy
Posts: 1856
Joined: Wed Jul 16, 2008 4:51 pm

Re: HDMI without an Alpha?

Unread post by Javelin »

Damn Don, I can't keep up... you run outa cheerleaders? The point here is even if the set has VGA the only thing that comes out of your vga connector is VGA 640x480// thats it .. thats all. everything else you might get is upconverted via the TV or converter box. and i'll bet you found out that most TV (not monitors but HDTV) pick a mish mash of oddball resolutions for that connector. the only way to get 1080P without any or much resampling is through DVI (sometimes) and HDMI everything else isn't real. Thats a fact and no amount of anecdotal stuff you post here is going to change that. The op wanted the same quality he's going to get from his camera and the only way thats going to happen is from an HDMI source (so far)
Javelin
Emperor of a Minor Galaxy
Posts: 1856
Joined: Wed Jul 16, 2008 4:51 pm

Re: HDMI without an Alpha?

Unread post by Javelin »

Um ok... you don't even read your own sources. if you hold them in such high regard here is a quote from your thread that quotes from nVidia.

The long answer short is: use HDMI/DVI unless a direct comparison with VGA reveals that your TV is applying unwanted image correction on the HDMI port.

Read up on DVI here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DVI" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

http://forums.nvidia.com/lofiversion...hp?t50789.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Quote:
DVI - information goes directly from your video card to your monitor. The color of each pixel on your monitor is calculated by your video card and then sent as digital information to your monitor so that no conversion is necessary. An LCD monitor simply reads this information and displays it directly

VGA - Information is converted from digital to [red,green,blue] format. Some accuracy and time is lost in this converstion. How much is lost depends on the monitor's conversion hardware.

Image Quality:

On a CRT monitor, there is no real image quality difference between DVI and VGA. This is because a CRT is natively based on the [red,green,blue] format for displaying each pixel.

On an LCD, you will notice a difference between the 2 formats if you look hard enough. Different LCDs will handle the conversion differently. You may start to see dithering, banding, "dancing pixels" and blander/incorrect colors when using vga on an LCD. The larger the LCD/resolution the more you will notice these differences.

DVI also has a faster data transfer rate, which means that the higher the resolution, the worse the input lag will be if you use VGA. This is very important if you play fast(twitch) shooter games.

Finally, VGA only contains the color information for your monitor's image. DVI includes more than that. That's why when you connect using DVI, you don't have to adjust your monitor's image position, phase, and clock corrections to sync. It contains exactly how/what your video card wants to display.

If you hook up your LCD with VGA, you will notice that several monitor adjustments become available were they were not under DVI. That is because DVI carries all the information your monitor needs to configure itself where as VGA does not.
Javelin
Emperor of a Minor Galaxy
Posts: 1856
Joined: Wed Jul 16, 2008 4:51 pm

Re: HDMI without an Alpha?

Unread post by Javelin »

Any resolution beyond 640 is derived in the monitor not at the source I see you understand that but are still arguing. ..But none of this matters anyway if the oP's set doesn't have a vga port. and if it does theres a more than even chance it's going to have problems displaying his VGA source especially if it can't do native 720 or 1080P.

That Atlona device will give him a 720P connection ffrom his USB port which will look awesome, uses HDMI cable wich will take 50' no problem and likely even farther with better cable so it can be run through walls and ceiling and not across the floor also it won't rely on the TV's upscaling the VGA signal and the HDTV won't have to stretch a weird scaled size to fill the screen.

I don't care what thousands of other owners are doing... I don't know what they are seeing. If I wanted to follow a crowd I'd shoot cannon and have video with disjointed noses rubber train cars and no AF... (no need to respond here it's just a small poke) I do however put more sand in whats written in the standards and what the problems are with mashing 2 incompatible standards together all of which is well documented by the people that make the stuff.

FWIW all I do with mine is use a USB cardreader in the USB port and my daughters can stick their xd CF and SD cards in there to look at their stuff on the big screen and I can copy edited pictures to a MS and use that too at the same time or take it right out of the camera. the only drawback is it takes about 30 seconds to load the bigger capacity cards up where the camera connection on HDMI is pretty much instant. but I can use the TV's remote to cycle the thumbnails and zoom the pics or just let the slideshow run.
883robert
Acolyte
Posts: 9
Joined: Mon Jan 05, 2009 10:19 pm

Re: HDMI without an Alpha?

Unread post by 883robert »

Thanks guys, plenty of food for thought here. I'm going to have to hunker down and digest it slowly.
For the record, my Sony Vaio can manage up to 1366 x 768 and as someone pointed out, certainly can't accommodate another graphics card. I haven't yet bought a tv. My budget runs to $A2000 which is about $US1400 at today's rollercoaster rate.
David's reference to being able to display full-resolution jpg's intrigues me. Must look into it. Meanwhile many thanks to all contributors. You help me no end.
kind regards
Robert
Melbourne, Australia
User avatar
KevinBarrett
Emperor of a Minor Galaxy
Posts: 2449
Joined: Wed Aug 13, 2008 5:32 pm
Location: Seattle, Washington, USA
Contact:

Re: HDMI without an Alpha?

Unread post by KevinBarrett »

David Kilpatrick wrote:The Sony configuration which works best is a current Bravia set with the Photo-TV function, combined with the PlayStation 3 Pro. This will accept your A700 memory cards directly, or you can create CD/DVD/BluRay discs containing the photos. The Playstation remote control provides incredible seamless, flowing movement round the picture including zooming and instead of just using the basic HD function (1920 x 1080) you can use the entire JPEG - zoom in, scroll round. Sony's own staff use the PS3 to show the pictures.
Will a Sony Bravia or PS3 be able to view ARW picture files from a DVD?
Kevin Barrett
-- Photos --
David Kilpatrick
Site Admin
Posts: 5985
Joined: Sat May 19, 2007 1:14 pm
Location: Kelso, Scotland
Contact:

Re: HDMI without an Alpha?

Unread post by David Kilpatrick »

No. The Bravia can view ARW files from the camera, using the embedded large JPEG. The PS3 can't see ARW files at all (in fact, it has serious problems seeing anything as a valid digital image unless you get the filenaming, directory structure JUST right for the system).

David
Post Reply

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 9 guests