Hey everyone, I wanted to share this with you. I just pasted my two posts from the Sony Forum into this one so that I can pass info this along.

Well, today I was looking into how to preview Vegas 7 to my HDTV and started researching HDMI video cards (such as the Intensity) and also found a couple NVIDIA / ATI chipset video cards with HDMI output ports on them. However, I also learned that my current NVIDIA 7600 GT card has a 7-pin HDTV connection (R,G,B) that I had thought was just a standard s-video connection, but that proved wrong. So I found the special cable that fits this 7-pin HDTV connection...now I just got to get a R,G,B cable to make the connection. In addition, the on-built NVIDIA graphics ports on the motherboard also support HDTV output with an included adapter card that came with the motherboard.

Looking at my HDTV's manual, it shows that it's YPbPr connection supports 1080i at 30Hz - I should be able to successfully make use of this connection and be able to preview Vegas at 1080i on my HDTV.

Just to answer my own question - IT WORKS!!! I had to enable HDTV in the BIOS. Once I started Vista back up, it recognized the connection on its own and then I was able to select a video resolution of 1920 x 1080. So Vegas does "external" preview with this connection.

Just to elaborate on some tech-things. My ASUS motherboard has an on-built NVIDIA graphics ports (DVI and VGA) but also came with a connection card/cable that attaches to the motherboard for HDTV output. This included card has the RGB, and S-Video out ports, so I used the RGB ports since my HDTV says its own RGB connections support 1920 x 1080 resolutions. I used the on-built motherboard video rather than use the additional PCIe graphics card I have installed, since that has both its DVI connected to a 22" widescreen and it VGA connected to a 19" widescreen monitor.

Just a follow up note: I had originally had my HDTV connected to the on-built motherboard graphics VGA connector. But this resulted in ONLY a 1360 x 768 @ 60Hz output resolution. That is the ONLY output resolution my HDTV supports for the VGA connection. But when I got to looking at the owner's manual, it clearly showed the resolutions for Component RGB to be 480, 720, and 1080. Using the NVIDIA Control Panel allows you to setup the output resolution for 1920x1080 for the component outs of the video card.

I do the same using my Quadro FX 560 card and output via YPBPr1 to my component output box from the Quadro.

Nathan,

Does the HDTV preview also work through the nVidia PCIe card? My ASUS MB is older and doesn't have HDTV support, so I may get a video card that supports HDMI.

It's important, of course, that the NLE support PREVIEW via the HDMI or at least a component video connection, and NOT just an overlay output. I take it from your post that Vegas Pro version does. I think the Studio versions don't support the external preview.

Does anyone know if Premiere supports an external HD preview? I have been using the Firewire preview via an external A/D converter and SD monitor TV. It works VERY well. Now we need to know how to do this in high-def.

Not familiar with Premiere products but I use the Vegas Pro and have no problems. I do have to setup the whole thing via my control panel to designate my secondary monitor as HDTV at 1920x1080i.

Hi, great post! I have an older laptop with dual 7900 GTX's but obviously no HDMI out (and no cardbus HDMI converters that I've found). It does however have a S-video out, was wondering if the same trick would work. How did you find out about yours? The laptop manufacuterer (Clevo) and reseller are generally pretty useless responding to tech questions...

It would save me an upgrade and a lot of $$'s if this worked in my case (looking to upgrade to a WUXGA monitor to view HDV if that's possible via HDMI from camera).

Regards