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+Our new display device, a Panasonic 
+<a href="http://catalog2.panasonic.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ModelDetail?storeId=11251&catalogId=11005&itemId=64592&catGroupId=11254&modelNo=PT-50LC13&surfModel=PT-50LC13">PT-50LC13</a> 
+LCD rear-projection HDTV set,
+arrived and got turned on only a couple of hours before I left for 
+<a href="http://linux.conf.au/">LCA 2004</a>
+in Adelaide.  Ever since returning home, I've been working on how to get the 
+<a href="http://www.mythtv.org/">MythTV</a> 
+frontend driving it optimally.
+
+I'm pretty happy with the results so far.
+
+After trying lots of combinations, I've ended up with an AGP video card using
+the nVIDIA FX 5200, driving the TV through the DVI cable that came with the
+set, at 1280x720 pixels resolution to match the display's native resolution
+(this is 720P in HDTV terminology).  The only trick was figuring out a 
+reasonable Modeline for the X config file:
+<pre>
+        Modeline        "720p" 74.25 1280 1312 1592 1648 720 735 742 757
+</pre>
+With that, the display is rock-solid and crisp.  As a digitally-oriented kind
+of guy, I find the whole concept of "overscan" in televisions mildy offensive,
+but the industry is accustomed to not having viewers see to the edge of the
+transmitted image... and that's just life.  What this means in practical terms
+with this display is that only the middle 1210x680 of the total 1280x720 pixels
+are actually visible.  I'm told that's a completely typical overscan percentage
+by the folks who hang out on the MythTV IRC channel.
+
+Two consequences of the overscan that I'll have to figure out eventually are
+that text in the Linux console framebuffer is clipped off on the left and sort
+of hard to read (only an issue when something breaks), and the MythTV on-screen
+display could stand to be shrunk slightly to fit into the visible pixel area
+better.  That's probably tweakable in the setup, but I haven't looked yet.
+
+Now I guess I have to decide whether to play with the HD-2000 card I bought
+from <a href="http://pchdtv.com/">pchdtv.com</a> first, or start tweaking the
+video capture and display parameters to optimize picture quality.  Since it
+appears that we might actually be able to watch the Super Bowl in HDTV if I 
+get all of that together in time, I'm pretty sure I know what my wife's vote
+would be...  ;-)
+
+[[!tag tags/pvr]]