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On a progressive scan television, the entire screen refreshes 60 times a second.
#Video connections for pc and mac full#
The result is that the full screen refreshes 30 times a second. It refreshes the odd-numbered horizontal lines first and then the even-numbered lines. An interlaced-scan TV refreshes half of the screen image 60 times per second. A refresh rate of 60 times per second translates to 60 hertz. Refresh rates on TVs and computer monitors are measured in hertz. This has to do with the way in which the image is rendered on the screen. The little "i" and "p" stand for interlaced and progressive scan. The bigger the number, the greater the screen resolution. The standard way to classify TV resolution is with numbers like 480i, 720p, 1080i and 1080p.
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It's the difference between painting a portrait with a thick sponge block or a small, delicate brush. With more pixels, the image can be rendered in greater detail. The latest HDTVs can display more than 2 million pixels. The old cathode ray TV (CRT) in your basement can display the equivalent of about 300,000 pixels. Resolution is a measurement of how many individual pixels your TV or computer monitor can display at once. Many people are familiar with the concept of screen resolution. Keep reading to learn more about bringing your small-screen life to the big leagues.
#Video connections for pc and mac how to#
The tricky part is figuring out exactly which TVs work with which computers and how to connect them all together. In fact, that's what the manufacturers of PC-based media centers are trying to achieve. If you try to use an SDTV as a monitor, you'll have a hard time getting your full desktop to fit on the screen.īut with the advent of high-resolution, high-definition TVs like flat-panel LCDs, plasma, LCoS, and DLP displays, televisions now make excellent computer monitors. A computer monitor can display more individual pixels than an SDTV.Įven today, hooking a computer to an SDTV only makes sense if you want to use your computer as a DVD player. The typical modern computer monitor has the ability to display images at a much higher resolution than a regular TV. The first personal computers used TVs for monitors, but computer graphics technology quickly outpaced the image quality on standard-definition TVs (SDTVs). Everything from movies to photos to work presentations were made for the big-screen experience. There are many compelling reasons why we want to connect our computers to our televisions, especially now that HDTVs are so popular.
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