Shuttle's SV24: Our smallest desktop PC

Final Setup

Now that the machine is fully configured, it's time to actually connect it to the TV and see if we reached our goal.

The Panasonic TH-42PWD4 has a VGA port and a 1/8" headphone jack for audio. We're currently using the TV's minimal internal audio amplifier rather than an external device, so setup should be quite convenient. For purists, there is a DVI daughtercard available for the TV, which should provide a gorgeous display. However, this Shuttle doesn't support DVI, so we're restricted to analog. At only 848x480, it wouldn't make much of a difference anyway.

So, there it is. The plasma defaulted to stretching and shifting the image off the screen and needed to be adjusted. After fiddling with the screen settings, the display eventually snapped to a perfect 1-1, pixel-to-pixel mapping. Despite the plasma's perfect digital image, we noticed no defects from the digital-to-analog-to-digital display route. In fact, the image is perfect. We also noticed that the sub-pixel components were arranged horizontally, similar to LCD panels. With a sly grin, we enabled the ClearType feature, thinking we might get lucky. Where we went wrong was in sub-pixel component ordering. This display appears to use BRG component ordering for each pixel, while most LCDs are RGB or BGR. Still, perhaps ClearType doesn't make much sense on such a low-DPI display anyway.