Is HDTV expected to lag when hooked to a computer’s DVI

technical-issues

I just hooked up my computer to a Sony Google TV via a DVI-to-HDMI cable and at the same time my monitor is still hooked up, so I'm on dual-display now. The video, the graphics, and the resolution all look great and crystal clear on the HDTV. The problem I have though is that its responsiveness is slow.

I don't know how that's possible, but any mouse or keyboard interaction I do, I can feel at least a half-a-second delay until the HDTV displays my input. For example, if I click on an icon, I can visually see it selected after at least half a second.

So I wanted to see how much that would affect gaming, I fire up WoW and it is so difficult to play with that lag. Moving around, casting spells, and clicking buttons are all on that same 500ms delay.

Make no mistake though, I don't see a lag in graphics — I get the normal 60-75 fps just fine, but it feels like it takes a while for the display to display. And the weirdest thing is that if I move over the mouse to the normal monitor, the responsiveness is absolutely normal. Move it back to the TV, and it's on that lag again.

So the question is, who is the culprit?

  • The DVI-to-HDMI converter cable?
  • The graphics card?
  • The Sony Google TV itself? Any special settings I don't know about?
  • Is it just HDTV being HDTV and this whole thing is expected? (I don't like this answer).

Best Answer

Nearly every TV nowadays (really any "HDTV") has lag, because it does a lot of post-processing on the video signal. Chiefly, any "motion smoothing" (120/240Hz) technology will create this lag. The most frequent way of resolving this is one of two things:

  • Find some kind of a mode like "Game Mode" and turn it ON.
  • Optionally, find any video enhancing modes (like the aforementioned motion smoothing) and turn them all OFF.

You want as close to a pass-through signal as you can possibly get. This isn't usually a problem on VGA/DVI interfaces, but since it's going into the TV HDMI, you've crossed into the world of enhancing typical consumer devices like DVD/BD players, game consoles, or even plain 'ole TV via a cable/satellite box.

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