How to send HMDI video to 23" Cinema HD Display?

Still hoping to figure this one out -- or is it in fact even figurable? Any thoughts/suggestions would be much appreciated!

John B.

Toronto

Thanks for the link re the BlackMagic card, which I'll check out in some other contexts.

But the scenario I'm trying to explore here doesn't really involve my MacPro at all: essentially, I'm just wanting to occasionally disconnect the 23" Cinema HD display from the tower altogether, and simply use that display to view and evaluate raw un-transferred AVCHD files, being played directly from the SD cards inside the same Canon HF-10 camera that recorded them, and using that camera's HDMI output, connected to the Cinema Display's DVI-D Dual Link input cable via the proper adapter (i.e.: HDMI-to-DVI-D Dual Link -- if such a connection is in fact even possible).

I can monitor the audio with the camera's built-in speaker; I just want to see if I can get the video direct from the camera to the Cinema Display (which of course is easy to do on my cheap 1920x1080 Acer monitor here at home, since it has a separate HDMI input; whereas the "nicer" Apple display at my work office will only take a DVI-D signal, and it has to be "Dual Link" -- since I've already learned that an HDMI-to-DVI Single Link adapter only results in a blank screen).

Hope that at least clarifies the question.

The display is indeed 1920x1200 -- but unless I did something really stupid (always a possibility!) -- it will not accept a signal from a Single Link connector.

And it's been suggested by a couple of folks that for arcane technical reasons beyond my understanding, the kind of simple adapter connection I'm imagining (one that would pass along a 1920x1080p HDMI video signal to a DVI-D Dual Link input) is not possible -- short of getting some special converting hardware which would cost much more than buying a display which already had its own built-in HDMI input port.

And yet I'm now seeing listings for adapters in the $20 range being described as exactly that: "HDMI to DVI-D Dual Link", and am still not clear where the inevitable "gotcha" will be in terms of trying to use one of those for the scenario I'm describing here.

Sadly -- and their product description notwithstanding -- the item on the page you've linked to is titled...

DVI-D Single Link Male to HDMI® Female adapter

...and I was in fact in touch with their support people a few months ago. Their response was that they do not have anything like the above in a Dual Link configuration. 😟

But the stubborn part of me still wants to know if such a configuration is even possible.

The insistence on dual link has unfortunately been thrust upon me, since I've already attempted the connection using an HDMI-to-DVI-D Single Link adapter, with the resulting blank screen on the Cinema Display -- after which I was told this display would definitely not accept a Single Link DVI connection, and also that a simple HDMI-toDVI-D Dual Link adapter might not be physically possible.

But since my brain hasn't yet fully grasped the differences between Single and Dual link signals, I'm still not clear whether I should even continue the search for an HDMI-toDVI-D Dual Link connector -- and I'd least like to understand why such an adapter is not possible (if in fact that's even the case).

(thanks for the link -- please see reply to samberl's post below)

samberl wrote:

The 23" ACD only accepts a DVI computer output only.

And just to be belt-AND-suspenders clear on that point, am I correct to further qualify that statement to read: my 23" Cinema Display HD will only accept a DVI-D Dual Link output?

But assuming that's the case, I still wish I could wrap my brain around the technical specifics of WHY an HDMI signal apparently can be converted into a DVI Single Link output via a simple $5 adapter, while converting the same HDMI signal to a Dual Link compatible output apparently requires a multi-hundred dollar hardware interface. (But if THAT's true, then what's the reality behind all the listings I'm seeing for $15-20 adapters described as: "HDMI to DVI-D Dual Link" -- are they deliberatley misleading, or just not accurate?)

I'm sure there's a good reason for all this -- I'm just still not sure what that good reason is (even after browsing the article who's link was provided by X423424X above, as well as other similar ones I'd already Googled).

Intuitively, I would think the larger-capacity and more robust Dual Link DVI-D "pipeline" would transmit the lower resolution, less demanding Single Link signal without breaking a sweat -- but the blank screen on my ACD tells me that's not the case. And is the reason for that incompatibility staring me in the face, or is this just one of those mysteries the cybergods never meant me to understand?