Just put together a new PC. 8800 GTS and a 24" Gateway Widescreen. I love it, it is beautiful.

What is the best way for me to get HD on my PC? Both Broadcast TV and Movies. HD-DVD, Blue-Ray... I see a lot of 3rd party boxes, and cards... what is the best? What do I need? My regular TV is OLD... and since I just dropped a big chunck of change on the PC/Monitor, I doubt the wife is gonna let me get that awesome 50" Widescreen anytime soon.

Believe my monitor supports everything except 1080p. But it does do 780p (which is better than 1080i... right?)

Anyway... any help would be appreciated. I tried to search, but HD brings up a lot that isn't about High Def!

Thanks in advance!

Althius,
If you go to www.avsforums.com
you will see a section on HTPC`s that you can learn alot from.I don`t have a TV Tuner card,so I can`t advise you there.It seems though that the DVICO Fusion has the fewest problems.For Movies,alot of people use the LG H20L HD DVd/BLURAY drive.I have one and can say it works great on HDDVD,haven`t tried BLURAY but,I`m sure it would work fine.You will also need a software player.Right now,Power DVD Ultra seems to be the best one available but it`s not without it`s problems.None of them are perfect.

Thanks for the link! Holy Moly there is a lot of information there. At least it gives me somewhere to start.

(If anyone else comes across this thread, the url is avsforum.com not forums. Just FYI)

1080p --> 1080i --> 720p

What is the max resolution of your monitor?

Well since you are using a monitor and not a TV all you need is DVI to HDMI cable to get the best look. I assume a TV capture card can capture HD after your cable/satelite provider decrypts it. I would recommend the LG Blue ray HD DVD combpe drive for now.

@Dirty 1920x1200 - I wasn't sure if 720p was better than 1080i.

What do you mean a "DVI to HDMI" cable... why would I want that. Is it a better picture than DVI?

HDMI is higher quality but if your monitor dont have a HDMI input just disregard it.

True 1080p is 1920x1080 so you would have no problem getting 1080p signals. DVI and HDMI both offer good video but HDMI is slightly better and generally HDMI has the capability of transfering video and audio through the same cable.

But not off a computer... right?

Ya offf a computer with the right equipment. You need a grapic card that you can plug your sound s/pdif into for it to work. Highend cards are geared toward gaming so alot of them dont add the s/pdif function.
this would be a good choice: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814500007 if you were going through a HDTV, but since you are using a monitor instead of a TV you probably are running speakers from your sound card so you dont need to worry about it. HDMI is the best signal if your monitor supports HDMI other wise DVI is good as well. If you get a capture card amke sure to get a digitalone and not a analog one.