Worth Buying HDMI Adapter?

I'm buying a alienware M15x, in the reviews some people complained it didn't come with a HDMI port so as there not very expensive i've decided to get a HDMI adapter too.

First of all I know near to nothing about anything generally HD.
I was wondering if the point of the HDMI adapter is to improve the visual display to HD standard or as a resort if the TV only has a HDMI port and no computer monitor port, so basically if I use this adapter will the quality of the image increase?

Thanks for listening.

 

If anything, placing additional adapters between the source (i.e. your M15x in this case) and the display would degrade image quality, although it's relatively insignificant.

Even if you have a TV with HDMI inputs only, you'd be better off just using a single VGA-HDMI cable than a VGA cable with an HDMI adapter, if only for the convenience factor.

tl;dr - you're not really gaining or losing anything.

 

ok thanks, thats been of great help to me =)

 

He should make that a DVI to HDMI cable (err, well assuming the M15x has DVI, don't see why it wouldn't). I currently use one to connect my Sager NP5793 to my HDTV, works flawless. Runs game at 1080p no problem (sometimes get some screan tearing but that is a problem that can be tweaked/fixed).

 

It depends, If its a DVI you have on the laptop, you dont loose any quality, because DVI is digital, like HDMI, either it works or it doesnt.

If its VGA, it is analogue, it sends infomation in way of "waves?" rather than bits
and depending on the cable and other factors, you can get rather bad quality.

EDIT: I looked it up: http://gdgt.com/alienware/m15x/specs/

It says you have Vga AND display port, so you just get a cheap display port to HDMI adapter and your fine, same quality.

 

If you are planning to hook your computer up to a TV, using a display port to HDMI adapter, you should know that people have been having problems getting audio to go throught the display port & HDMI adapter. In the Lenovo forums some people with Thinkpads that have Nvidia graphics & display port have gotten audio to work on a TV, but adjusting audio properties on the NVIDIA settings. I'm not sure if this only works on a few Thinkpads or all of them. I'm also not sure if this is still an issue for alienware or dell, so you betting look into it before you buy.


http://www.displayport.org/consumer/?q=content/faq

 

well in whatever case, hes sure not gonna get audio in Vga to HDMI, so he cant go wrong.

seems you at least get stereo anyway: http://en.community.dell.com/forums/t/19318684.aspx

EDIT: and this guy from our own forums: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=283413 but looking at the date its a m15x.

BTW, I got all those answers in a 2 minute googling period, try google

 

the M15x should ship with a DP to HDMI adapter. i still have mine and it carried audio to a reciever just fine.

 

You can go from dvi to hdmi easy or vice versa. VGA will probably require a converter not just an adapter/cable as its a signal conversion involved unless your VGA is both analog and digital.

For Display Port, it may also require an active adapter and not just an adapter.

 

Naws, thats just for us Eyefinity users, but for a single DP to HDMI there is no activeness needed.

 

My M15X came with a displayport to hdmi adaptor... free

 

Afternoon all,

Apologies for hijacking this thread:
I have a Sony Vaio SZ (nVidia card) and which has a VGA output. I would like to send an output into the HDMI port of the television. Is this possible and how could i do this? What would be the preferred option?

Most videos I play are XVID AVI with encoded AC3 audio.

 

http://www.engadget.com/2010/02/19/atlonas-vga-to-hdmi-adapter-ditches-the-brick-does-1080p-on-us/

Featured just now on engaget, i think this is what you want.

 

HDMI is the current state-of-the-art in consumer digital to digital video/audio transfer, so anything else will typically be a step down. That said, display port is a no cost option to HDMI (which manufacturers have to pay for) which is suppose to do the same thing. As for the HDMI, sometimes the difference is noticeable, sometimes it isn't.

For one, you have to have a TV and media player that can resolve the higher level the cable is capable of. So if your TV is only capable of 720p or even a lessor quality 1080p (they're not all created equally you know) you may never see/notice the difference.

Not always. There are some 4 different versions of DVI and not all are digital. The digital version would be identified as DVI-D, but sometimes it gets taken for granted that the "D" is intended.

 

Ah, I always took for granted that DVI was digital, my bad!

 

First, see if your TV has a VGA input that you could use. This port is often called RGB, or D-Sub, or PC-input... but they're all the same thing. If so, just connect your VGA cable to that. That way, you make use of the TV's built-in analog-to-digital converter, rather than buying a new one.

If your TV doesn't have a free VGA input, then yeah, just buy a VGA-to-HDMI adapter.

What "high lever"?

You may never see/notice the difference regardless (although you'll probably think you do ), as long as you have decent-quality equipment, a decent quality cable, and minimal electrical interference.

Contrary to popular opinion, VGA handles 1080p (and even higher resolutions) without any problems.

The movement toward HDMI has nothing to do with resolution at all. It's (1) to eliminate signal degradation caused by conversion to/from analog, and by sending the signal down a wire in analog format, (2) to add convenience by including the (digital) audio signal in the same cable as the video, and (3) to support HDCP copy-protection and eventually close the analog hole.

True, but the most common kinds of DVI are digital (for obvious reasons).


Anyway, here's what to do: if your computer has HDMI, use that; if it doesn't and it only has VGA, then use that; if it has DVI or DisplayPort, then you can get an adapter from that to HDMI.

 

Actually, that should have read "higher level." In reference to the limitations of the weakest link in the chain.

Now there you take too much for granted. I'm not inclined to go that far, rather, let the user decide for himself.

Again, you're making presumptions that may or may not be apparent. Because VGA can handle it, doesn't mean you get the best picture your system is capable of. As an audio/videophile, I'd want to know about the best my equipment is capable of, and how to get it!

I'm well aware of it's intent. However, that does not mean that picture quality (including resolution) is not an important factor in it's creation.

Incorrect. And again, making those assumption is a bad idea.

If you put it that way, then you have no other alternative. However, adapter are cumbersome and add an extra level of complexity which is what most people want to avoid. My suggestions are designed to help people avoid that needless area of complications.