T400 and HDTV?

Is it possible to hook up T400 to HDTV to use as a media center computer?

It appears the graphics output is limited to VGA out; not HDMI or DVI like many modern laptops.

Thanks,

RR

 

VGA is all you get on the notebook (however many HDTVs [especially LCD] have this input).

You can get DisplayPort (HDMI compatible w/ adapter) on the T500 or the T400 dock.

 

Depends on your tv: there are a few limitations. At home i have a 32 inch LG lcd tv that works with my t400 flawlessly. At my parents' (who have a 40-inch sony lcd) there are a couple quirks that i haven't worked out yet - the picture wont cover the whole screen. Also you are limited to a 6-foot VGA cable. Any longer and you cant output at 1920x1080.

 

Maybe you can help me with something as you seem to have a similar setup at home to myself.

I have a brand new 1080P 37" LG (37LG50) and I have used it a couple of times with my x200 in the few days I have had it. I can output to the TV at any resoltion between 1280x720 and ≈1800x1000 and the image fills the whole screen w/o any overscan (the entire desktop is shown). However, when I output at 1920x1080, the right 20% (everything right of the battery icon on the taskbar) is cut off.

For the moment, I have just settled on outputting at 1280x720 and allowing the TV to scale it up to 1080P (I mainly hook it up for video playback, and they are never above 720P). However, I would prefer to use 1920x1080 if I could get it to work properly (I get the same result in Vista and XP).

Is there anything special you had to do to get your T400 to work at 1920x1080 w/ your 32" LG (I assume 32LG50 or 32LG60), or did it work properly without any effort? Any help on this would be appreciated.

Also related, does anyone know how to specify custom resolutions in Presentation Director? This is my preferred method for switching display configurations, but it only supports computer resolutions (1280x768, 1280x800, 1440x900, 1680x1050, 1920x1200). To output at 720P (1280x720) or 1080P (1920x1080) I must manually adjust the resolution in Vista display settings. This is less convenient and if I could specify custom resolutions (e.g. manually edit a config file or the profiles) for Presentation Director that would be preferable.

 

One option would be to use a tool like PowerStrip - it will let you define custom resolutions, which become available with all the other "standard" resolutions under display Properties. once it's there, you coudl easily switch between them using MultiRes (same company as PowerStrip, and also free) which gives you a coo ltray icon, 1-click and you can change resolution.
I just recently installed PowerStrip so i could get a resolution between 1280x800, and 960x600.
I'm currently viewing at 1152x720 and love it.

 

That is an option, but the opposite of the direction I want to go (less tools not more).

I already like Lenovo's presentation director for attaching a WSXGA+ monitor for work, and an xga projector for presentations, and would like to use the same application to output at 1280x720 or 1920x1080 to my HDTV (these resolutions are not currently configurable in Presentation director). Each of these profiles also have different monitor arrangements and wallpapers (only Presentation director handles this cleanly in my experience).

 

It appears than another option is to use the T400 with an docking station. This will allow a D-DVI to the TV. This will allow for HD video to be sent to the TV. I am not sure yet how to get audio to TV.

RR

 

I understand your concern about added apps, I was too.
Actually, the problem lays in the driver and INI files - in any windows app, you'll only get options of what the base driver provides. Therefore if you want any others, you'll have to edit this list somehow.
I basically used PowerStrip solely for this purpose. In fact, I loaded it up, and ran the section allowing alternative resolutions (and refreshes FWIW but that get dangerous!). It then edited the base list, so any windows app now sees it as an option.
I have since un-installed Powerstrip - and guess what, I still have the "unusual" resolutions available to me, no extra SW running or installed. I basically just used PowerStrip to make the edit for me.

 

For those of you using the VGA out to the TV, how are your handling sound from laptop to TV?

RR

 

My TV has an 1/8" stereo input (standard headphone) jack on the back. If your TV doesn't have one of these, you will need a 1/8" stereo to RCA (white/red) like this one.

 

Jon,
Did you ever get this problem resolved? I, too, have a 37LG50 and when trying to use 1920x1080, the right section is cutoff. Even going into the TV's menu and having it "AutoAdjust" won't fix the problem.

 

I did not fix this problem. However, I was able to specify custom resolutions in presentation director by editing the registry (go to the selected profile and change the hex string).

At the moment I have just been using 1280x720 output for the 37LG50 (this works perfectly). This is less than ideal, but because I rarely play back content at a higher than 720P resolution and the 37LG50 has a good quality 720P to 1080P scaler built in, I have found it to be acceptable.

I am going to test it out with a few other computer I have in the house both on VGA and HDMI, to see if the problem is ThinkPad specific, or is simply a limitation of the VGA input on this television (if so I will call LG to see if they know of a workaround).

 

My money's on the fact that the VGA input is screwy. I'm going to try using S-Video tomorrow and see if it handles 1080p w/o issues. Will let you know how it goes. Can also try using my HP 8510W laptop via HDMI, but I'm almost certain that'll work w/o issues since my DVD and Dish boxes have no problems whatsoever.

ps the PC i'm using is an Intel Atom box; Googling this issue is how I stumbled upon this thread; I did use a T43 before the HP, though.

 

I tried a few others myself and reached some conclusions.

The VGA input is indeed a bit screwy.

1280x720 - Works perfectly, no border, nothing lost, decent clarity, albeit smaller than desired desktop.
1360x768 - Works fair - no border, nothing lost, poor clarity, smaller than desired desktop (this would probably be ideal on many 720P televisions however, as they are native to 1366x768).
1600x900 - Works poorly - no picture on left 1/3 of screen, right 1/3 cut off, decent clarity.
1680x1050 - Work fair - picture fills screen, nothing cut off; however, non-square pixels are used and aspect ratio is incorrect (everthing is too short).
1920x1080 - works poorly - image fills entire screen, right 15% cut off, good clarity.

This was tested on 3 different computer's VGA ports (x200 Tablet w/ Intel X4500, old Dell Desktop w/ Geforce 2MX, self built desktop w/ ATI Radeon 3200).

HDMI works, but has a different problem.

1920x1080 loses no information, but it has underscan. There is a small black border (about 1") around the entire image. This in turn means that I do not get 1:1 pixel mapping, and is not ideal.

At the moment, I am set on 1280x720 over VGA and audio over 3.5mm stereo. This is not the native resolution, but it scales well and is generally adequate for my needs.

FYI, S-Video will NOT work for 1080P. S-Video is a standard definition analog connector and will top out around 720x480. It worked wonders on my old T40 and 53" RPTV Hitachi, but it will not provide a satisfying experience on an LCD (VGA would be much preferred).

 

I called up LG (1800-243-0000) and they were not too helpful (in fact they were quite defensive).

Apparently they have a newer version of the 37LG50 manual, and claim that THE ONLY SUPPORTED RESOLUTION over VGA is 1280x768 [in my experience 1280x720 works as well if not better as it is 16x9]. I pressed them hard on this not being the native resolution of the display, but they claimed that according to the manual this is the only thing that worked due to limitations of the VGA standard.

Conversely, my manual clearly states that 1920x1080 works on RGB-PC (VGA) and even includes refresh rates (62.95KHz H-sync and 55.96Hz V-Sync). Therefore, I know that VGA should work, it just refuses to.

Ultimately they said I had to use HDMI, and when I explained the problems I got with HDMI they simply blamed the computer/video card manufacturer and said to take the issue up with them.

I am annoyed at the quality of their tech support, but the TV itself is quite nice. Viewing angles are good, calibration options are very good, and input options are decent. 1280x720 works and is adequate, but I would prefer if it properly supported 1920x1080 as that is the native resolution of the TV.

Also, if you haven't calibrated your set yet, I suggest you do. You need to set this setting up for each of the inputs (although I would leave standard analog broadcast/cable to the intelligent sensor). I reached these numbers by using the Blu-Ray edition of HD-Basics.

Use Expert 1/2 for your calibrated day/night profiles
Backlight - your preference, I use 20 for evening viewing and 88 for daytime.
Contrast 90
Brightness 55
Sharpness 0
Color 50
Tint 0
Expert Control
Fresh Contrast OFF
Noise Reduction OFF
Gamma LOW
Black Level LOW
Real Cinema ON
Color Standard HD
White Balance WARM
Method 2 pOINTS
Red Contrast 0
Green Contrast 0
Blue Contrast 0
Red Brightness 0
Green Brightness 0
Blue Brightness 0
Color Management
Red Color 2
Red Tint 0
Green Color 8
Green Tint 0
Blue Color 0
Blue Tint 0
Yellow Color 0
Yellow Tint 0
Cyan Color 0
Cyan Tint 0
Magenta Color 0
Magenta Tint 0

This is a color accurate profile and looks fantastic for broadcast HD and DVD, Blu-Ray, and Games from a PS3. It also works well for the PC input. However, I would just use automatic for standard definition cable.

 

Heh heh, that's the first thing I did after getting the panel out of the box. Have the VE disc from years ago, although I heard the BD version isn't much different. Still trying to fully get into the service menu, but can't get past the first couple of simple screens.

Duh!!! Don't know what I was thinking. Was probably clouded by the 1920x1080 not working...

 

You don't need the service menu. Just set the color profile to Expert 1 (instead of Cinema, Sports, Vivid, etc.) and calibrate it there (this is a very easy way to reach all of the settings I changed, and I can't imagine anyone needing more settings than that)..

 

I was able to get my t400 to output in 1080 using a VGA cable. i was using the intel gfx and extended my desktop onto a 42" 1080p westinghouse. however the image had a border and I needed to set the TV to "stretch" the image

 

I don't own a Lenovo yet, but I'm considering the 37LG50 HDTV. Have you guys checked for overscan and underscan settings in the control panel for the video card software within windows? On my desktop PC with ATI card, I have to set overscan to zero within windows to get it right on a 1080P TV when using HDMI.

 

That would probably fix the HDMI problem, as it seems to be underscanning by about 3%. My guess is that the TV detects a computer is attached, and automatically adjust to underscan (default is 1-2% overscan for TV/PS3 on the 37LG50).

That being said, I don't think the Intel graphics driver includes an overscan adjustment, although the ATI on the T400 might.

 

Is there no way to turn off scaling on the TV HDMI inputs? That's a deal breaker for me

The TV manual shows both RGB and HDMI for PC use at 1080P resolution. You would think the TV would tuen off scaling.

I see a Just Scan setting on the TV, That should do 1:1 pixel mapping. So, anyone connecting via HDMI, and set the TV to Just Scan, and make sure you are not under or over scanning within windows should be just fine.

 

I was having a problem setting up my X200 on a Sony 40 inch LCD. All I did was run SystemUpdate (but have since uninstalled it). I'm pretty sure it was the Intel display driver that did the trick.

 

Sorry to dredge up an old thread (along with hijacking it since my issue was regarding the 37LG50 LCD and not a T400 specifically), but the info may be of use.
The chopping issue under 1080p w/ this specific LCD seems to be Windows driver related. Since my last post, I decided to build a Hackintosh out of the exact same PC I had previously asked the question about. After getting Mac OS X properly installed, there were absolutely zero problems running at 1080p. So, something with the Win driver syncs incorrectly w/ this LCD...

 

How is the picture quality over VGA?
Can you tell when hooking it up to a 24" monitor that it's not a digital connection?

 

PQ is fine, but I'm not using it to watch BD movies or anything either. Just wanted the big real-estate with which to do photo/video editing from my couch.