HD-compatible Hardware

As you know, there was substantial confusion in the past with determining whether HDCP support was available in the actual board. The PureVideo HD logo mandates board-level support for HDCP, making it easy to figure out. As of October, the NVIDIA boards supporting HDCP are:

1. Every GeForce 7950GT
   
2. Every GeForce 7950GX2
   
3. MSI NX7900GT-VT2D256E-HD
   
4. MSI NX7600GT-VT2D256E-HD
   
5. MSI NX7600GT Diamond Plus
   
6. Asus EN7600GT/HTDI/256MB
   
7. Asus EN7900GTX/2PHT/512M
   
8. GigaByte GV-NX76G256HI-RH
   
9. EVGA 7900 GTX 512MB RoHS w/HDCP
   
10. EVGA e-GeForce 7900 GS Fan
    
11. EVGA e-GeForce 7900 GS KO Fan
    
12. Leadtek WinFast PX7900 GS TDH
    
13. Leadtek WinFast PX7900 GS TDH Extreme
    
14. Leadtek WinFast PX7900 GTX TDH Extreme
    
15. XFX GeForce 7900 GTX 512MB
    
16. Albatron GeForce 7900 GS HDCP
    
17. IO Data GA-7600GSH.
    

The scaler plays a critical role with DVD and HDTV. This is what will transform the 720x480 DVD or 1280x720 or 1920x1080 HD source image into the full resolution of your display (i.e. 1280x1024, 1600x1200, 1920x1200, 2048x1536, 2560x1600). Currently, there is only a limited role for upsampling with HD-DVD / Blu-Ray with today’s hardware. If you have a 1920x1200 display, then no scaling occurs. If you have a smaller sized screen, you’ll actually be downsampling.

One caveat: Dual-link DVI and HDCP

To date, there is only one 2560x1600 monitor with HDCP, the Dell 3007WFP. Unfortunately, there aren’t any graphics cards that are capable of transmitting the HDCP signal to the 3007WFP over the dual-link DVI connection.

As a result, owners of the 3007WFP have to drop down to 1280x800 resolution to playback HD-DVD/Blu-Ray content. The Dell 3007WFP should support 2560x1600 with HDCP, but there’s no actual graphics card that can pull this off yet. AMD says that future GPUs (including integrated graphics) will support dual-link HDCP.

Currently, the following monitors have HDCP support

1. *NEC Multisync 20WMGX2 20” 1680x1050
   
2. *Gateway FPD2185W 21” 1680x1050
   
3. *HP f2105 21” 1680x1050
   
4. *ViewSonic VP2330wb 23” 1920x1200
   
5. *Samsung 244T 24” 1920x1200
   
6. Samsung 214T 21” 1600x1200
   
7. Samsung 930MP 19” 1280x1024
   
8. Samsung 940MW 19” 1440x900
   
9. Samsung 242MP 24” 1920x1200
   
10. Sony MFM-HT95 19” 1280x1024
    
11. Sony MFM-HT205 20” 1680x1050
    
12. BenQ FP241W 24” 1920x1200
    
13. Dell 3007WFP 30” 2560x1600 (today’s video cards limited to HDCP at 1280x800)
    
14. Dell E207WFP 20” 1680x1050
    
15. Dell 2407WFP 24” 1920x1200
    
16. Dell 2007WFP 20” 1680x1050
    

* = Reviewed by FiringSquad.com

Software

With the Detonator 90 series, NVIDIA deinterlacing features were activated for any DXVA application. However, NVIDIA continues to develop and support their PureVideo MPEG-2 Decoder. The PureVideo decoder is considered to be one of the best MPEG-2 decoders on the market and is the preferred decoder in Windows Media Center Edition 2005, even with ATI users.

For HD-DVD and Blu-Ray playback however, NVIDIA is not planning to develop their own PureVideo-branded H.264 decoder at this time. Instead, they will be relying on Cyberlink, Corel/Intervideo, and Ahead (Nero) to provide the software necessary.