DVI input specification of Pioneer PDP504PE (The screen part of the Pioneer PDP504HDE)

[Marcos Scriven]

I have recently bought a Pioneer PDP504HDE - this is sold as one item.
In fact, it's two items, the first being the screen (the 504PE) and
the second being the media box (the R04). The media box has loads of
connections (scart, component, vga, hdmi), and connects to the screen
by a proprietary cable. The cable has a DVI plug and an DFP-MDR20. I
don't know anything about the MDR20 part, but the curious part about
the DVI plug is ALL the pins in the main rectangular block are there
(so it has 24 pins plus the little flat pin to the side) whereas on
the DVI cable to my normal PC monitor, there are a few missing in the
middle). I think this may be something to do with DVI-I vs DVI-A or
DVI-D (not entirely sure about the diff)

So here's the question(s)

1: I have an HDMI<->DVI cable which on the DVI end looks just like the
one I use to hook up to a regular PC monitor. If I plug in my Mac
Powerbook, the automatic screen name thing shows that the computer
knows it's connected to a 504R. However, it detects only one possible
resolutions which is something odd like 1900x540. I've been looking
into this a lot, and people have said there's just no way to get the
native 1280x768 resolution on this input, as it only accept 720p
(whatever that means). Anyone have any ideas to get this to work?

2) The other option is I think to use the DVI input DIRECTLY on the
screen. However, it doesn't work - must be proprietary wiring. The
screen shuts down after only a few seconds. BUT - there is a glimmer
of hope - the Mac recognised the screen name as "504P" - and in
addition lots of resolutions and refresh rates, including the native
1280x768. My question here is - anyone know how I can get hold of the
wiring info, or even reverse engineer it?

3) An idea more than a question, but would be interested in ideas and
help. One point to note is that because the distance between the media
box and screen is 4m (1m greater than the standard 3m cable that came
with it), I needed to buy the 10m cable, which is quite expensive. So
a) I'd like to not have to trash it, and b) I'd like to be able leave
the wire in place (as it's in the wall!) I figure there is hopefully a
way to build a device which on one side has TWO DVI inputs and a
switch - in one goes the normal input from the media box (would need
some DVI cable that had ALL the pins I guess, where would I get
that?). In the other would go any standard input from a Mac or PC. On
the other side of the device would be another DVI plug that would plug
into the DVI part of the 'system' cable to the screen. I then envisage
flicking the switch for PC input, with perfect 1:1 digital connection
for each pixel, and flicking back to get the box connected as before.
The other unknown is what the MDR20 part of the cable carries. There
are four inputs on the media box selected by the remote control - so
there's obviously some control signals for that, and also for just
keeping the screen on.

That's all a bit long winded - but that's because I don't really know
what I'm talking about! But just to recap - my aim is simple:

I want to use the setup as normal, but when connected to a PC/Mac, I
want the screen to have perfect 1280x768 digital quality. Why? Well,
why not if you can, but also because I want to setup a Home Theatre PC
(HTPC). I was only using the Mac because I had no luck with the PC at
the moment.

Hope someone can help!

Thanks

Marcos

 

[Art]

Yup!! You will simply love the resulting computer display after a couple of
hours. That is once you start realizing that the non moving icons, etc just
burned into the plasma display. Suggest using the super video of your
compiter into the media box, then for a limited peroid only. BTW the channel
logos, scroll bars, etc can cause similar problems in plasma displays.