HDTV Forum

I have an old Sony Profeel 25" monitor still in use as a primary TV, and still displaying a great quality picture. I'm about to get my first HD TV and just hate the idea of dumping this quality product off to a recycler. But - hope springs eternal - it suddenly occurred to me that as a Monitor, with no TV tuner in the way, maybe it could display an HD picture if I could get an HD signal to it? It has an RGB connection port typical of monitor to computer. Other than that only one RCA type video IN and two RCA type audio IN ports. Any ideas?

The question is a good one, since many people may find themselves in the same predicament you are in.
The short answer is "no".
The SD monitor is the old CRT standard with a maximum of approximately 480 lines of resolution.
The problem is compounded by the inputs. HD will not imput over RCA connections of the type you have.
You could hook up a computer to it and have a heck of a computer monitor, but still only able to max out around 480. A quality video card will most likely pick up the max that can be displayed on the set.
Why not run a splitter from your source (cable or satellite) and stick the tv in another room. Of course you would need to get another box to change channels, unless you used it in a slave configuration and only watched what is playing on your main set.
Hope this helps.

Even when receiving off the air local stations by antenna in HD your display could only show it is SD. Your display doesn't have the pixels and the internal workings required for displaying HD.

Greg

While I agree with everyone's assessment, I have been able to receive HD signal on my SD TV (a 1990's era Mits 20 inch). I can send a HD signal via a wireless transmitter from my Directv receiver to this TV. The HD picture actually fits as an SD picture on this TV. SD signals sent from the Directv receiver appear very narrow on this TV with black bars on each side, as would be expected.

So, no, you cannot hook it up via the RCA connections but it is possible via a wireless transmitter.

I don't believe you can transmit HDTV signals wirelessly today and even if you could, the TV can't display them.

You can take a downconverted SD signal and transmit that but it won't be HD.

>Why not run a splitter from your source (cable or satellite) and stick the tv in >another room. Of course you would need to get another box to change channels, >unless you used it in a slave configuration and only watched what is playing on >your main set.

I do have a satellite cable signal in another room, and I could use my soon-to-be-obsoleted SD DISH Receiver/DVR to act as a channel switcher and to route a signal from it to the Monitor via composite video. But that'll only work until the cutover to digitial in 2009. I was just hoping there would be a way to get a higher definition display out of my Monitor............

I know I'm in way over my head in technical competency on this issue, but..............there is still the RGB IN connector on the monitor, and I have learned there are RGB to component converters, though I need to go in the other direction, say from component to RGB. These latter are much more expensive, and so far I haven't found a converter that handles an HD signal. And presumably there would be some sort of synch problems anyway. But even assuming the right converter would be available, I would still need yet another piece of gear. Some device would have to be there to accept the RF signal IN from the coax cable and that device would have to have a component OUT. And I would still need a channel switcher. And I'd have to add an amplifier and speakers (which I do have). And suddenly there would be yet another tower of gear, so I'd need a rack too...........(sigh).

So..............., even if I could find all the right gear, it looks like cost would be *significant* and the end result might be awful.

Perhaps I'll just need to wait until the 2009 cut over to digital and see what will be offered by way of converters.

maybe it could display an HD picture if I could get an HD signal to it?

But of course using composite or s-video - any old SD TV can display an HD image but of course it won't be in HD, it will be an HD image on an SD TV. I don't know if your application will support this in the way you want but that is easy to figure out. Connect the composite or s-video output to it and see what the results are.

Your Dish receiver will still work after 2009. The digital changeover will not affect satellite or cable receivers.

argen wrote:I was just hoping there would be a way to get a higher definition display out of my Monitor............

The problem is your TV simply doesn't have enough display lines. It's probably 480i at best, so even if you could feed it a 1080i signal on component converted to RGB - the TV will have to scale it down to 480i, so why bother? The best you can do is to take the Standard Definition signal from a satellite or OTA tuner and feed that to the highest quality connection on the TV, which may be RGB.

I agree - the signal being transmitted is not HD. But, the signal can be transmitted. If I tune to an HD channel, 73 (ESPN) on Directv for instance, the picture is there on the TV the signal was transmitted to. It, of course, is not HD but definitely watchable.

A wireless transmitter does allow one to watch a HD channel in another room on a SD TV but not in HD.