Tuesday, December 2, 2008

See the Blog title.

Early this summer, my eldest son and his wife gave me a great gift: a 24-inch iMac. This is a wonderful machine, which, when wirelessly connected to my DSL pipe, has led to many amazing discoveries. One of the more recent discoveries is the joy of streaming "watch it now" movies from my Netflix account. But as amazing as that crisp, bright 24-inch display is; as nice as those iMac speakers sound, they don't really give the theater experience as well as I could get with my home theater system, which includes a large plasma screen TV and a Bose 3-2-1 sound system.

So now, I'm hoping to connect the 2008-model iMac 24-inch to the 2-year-old 50-inch Hitachi Plasma Screen (built July 11, 2006). The Hitachi is a model 50HDA39. This leads to the blog title: Nothing is as EZ as it should be! I'm not a techno-dummy, but the maze of specifications to be traversed here has my head swimming.

The iMac apparently has only a mini-DVI out for video output (I assume Firewire and USB are only for data, not to include video--although Sony uses Firewire for video and audio in a "consolidated" fashion). The iMac is not a Sony.

The Hitachi has Composite, S-Video, HDMI, and VGA inputs.

The Apple Store Website sells adapters from the mini-DVI to S-Video, or mini-DVI to VGA. The Apple Website says that the mini-DVI to S-Video also includes composite video capability (not further defined on the Website). It offers no such claim for the mini-DVI to VGA adapter.

The Apple Store Website states that the mini-DVI to VGA adapter can be used in both video mirroring and extended desktop modes. There is no such note regarding the mini-DVI to Video adapter. Reviews on the Apple Store Website indicate that video quality is not acceptable on a large-screen display using either S-Video or Composite. Is this true? Should I assume that the VGA is the correct route for my application?

The Web site does not mention the audio component in the discussion of either adapter.

Should I assume that I'll have to have an optical-audio-out (iMac) to composite audio-in (Hitachi) to also get the audio? The Apple Store does not offer such a device. Have you ever seen one? If I select S-Video or VGA inputs for the Hitachi, the Hitachi manual hints that the Hitachi will know where to get the audio if the "PC Picture menu" input is selected for audio and video. Or should I bypass the Hitachi and go directly to the Bose? Wow. I know that third remote control is here somewhere!

The Hitachi manual also says:

Pixels: 1,366 x 768
Video: Suggested scan rates: 1080i, 480p, 480i, 720p, 48 kHz sampling frequency.

PC INPUT = Mini-Dsub 15 pin x 1
· An adapter is not needed for computers with a DOS/V compatible mini D-sub 15-pin terminal.
· The on-screen displays will have a different appearance in PC mode than inTV mode.
· If your PC display output corresponds to a WVGA or a WXGA resolution as indicated in the chart below (example: WXGA 1360 x 768), you must set the WVGA INPUT or WXGA INPUT to the ON position in the PC Picture menu in the TV (see page 43).

VGA 640x480 60Hz
WVGA 848x480 60Hz
SVGA 800x600 60Hz
XGA 1024x768 60Hz
WXGA 1280x720 60Hz
WXGA 1280x768 60Hz
WXGA 1360x768 60Hz

What the...? It's my understanding that the iMac 24-inch has a native resolution of 1920 x 1200. Will I need to change the resolution? Can the resolution be changed?

At this point, if I had hair, I would pull it out! Pardon my ignorance, but, then, as my blog title says, Nothing is as EZ as it should be!

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