HD Monitor

[asdfmkay]

Hello,

Please feel free to flame me as I am a complete and utter n00b.

Anyway, the question I have is what makes something considered High Definition? Is it just the resolution of the screen or something completely else?

My monitor I have now is a 19 inch widescreen LCD and the resoultion I am using is 1440 by 900.

Is this considered HD? Or no. How do you know what HD?

Thanks.

 

[moisiss]

I think that your monitor would be capable of running in HD (720p but not 1080i or 1080p). Here is a link that explains what is defined as HD.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_definition_tv

As you can see, the resolution required to run 720p is 1280 x 720 pixels... your monitor is 1440 x 900 so I think it would be considered "HD". Honestly though, I am just inferring this from the definition of "high def." so I could be mistaken... in which case I hope someone will correct me.

 

[The General]

High Definition is just a n00bified term for high resolution. The color depth isn't any better... The frame rate isn't any better... The only thing that's better is resolution.

480i = 720x480 interlaced
480p = 720x480 progressive
720i = 1280x720 interlaced
720p = 1280x720 progressive
1080i = 1920x1080 interlaced
1080p = 1920x1080 progressive

Most of the time when you see "HD Ready" that means that the device is HDCP compliant. HDCP is a form of DRM/copy protection.

So to answer your question - yes your monitor is capable of displaying high resolution video. It does it all the time, thats all it does is display high resolution video. When you use your computer, your computer is outputing high resolution video. What you are looking at is high resolution video.

If you downloaded some HDTV recordings of TV shows, they will play just fine on your monitor, because all your monitor does is display video all day long at 1440x900.

But it is not "HD Ready" because it is not HDCP compliant, in that it doesn't contain an HDCP decryptor. You won't be able to display an HDTV satellite feed on your monitor unless you're an ub3r l33t hacker who knows a lot about cryptography.

 

[asdfmkay]

Hi, thank you so much for your helpful response. Would you or anyone else mind going into what HDCP is?

Would I ever be able to purchase this HDCP externally? Is there anyway to display HD television programming without downloading shows from the internet and instead get it from my cable signal somehow? Sorry I know this is noobish and I tried to research somewhat, just hard to know what to search for. Thanks.

 

[lancec2c30]

Well I think you need a video card that can display hdcp, and a monitor that is hdcp ready.

So no I don't think you would ever be able to purchase something like that externally.