The 171MP breaks all the rules of what a monitor should be by including an optional integrated TV-tuner. Other than the miracles of the V-Chip one of the nicest things about watching TV on the 171MP is the headphone jack on the left hand edge. While the image is somewhat expanded from the actual resolution TV's use, the picture is perfectly fine from a foot or two away, though if you look really close you can sort of see the 'algorithm' at work as it were.

The display offers users on the NTSC system (North America) the chance to set the TV picture to PIP while working away on the computer, or to make it full screen, and replace a small TV altogether. Sound quality through the two small front speakers is very good, but at high levels distortion creeps in, so it is good not to over do it too much.

With regard to the picture in picture capabilities, it's really important to note that the feature is completely removed from the video card. Everything happens right inside the display so no extra load is forced upon the processor or video card at all. The same goes for video if you wanted to hook the display up to say a HDTV feed and a DVD player.

The component output from the HDTV connection is however NOT compatible with HDTV DVD players. This about the only let-down of the entire display, but I guess that's acceptable as most people would prefer to watch DVD's from a progressive scan player on a large 30" HDTV.

So Let's recap for a moment, because I'm even getting lost.... The Syncmaster 171MP is compatible with HDTV Digital Television and NOT HDTV component output DVD players. Trust me we tried, oh man did we try!

Even if you hook up the component output leads from the 171MP to the right connectors on the back of a fancy progressive scan DVD player, nothing will be visible. So sad. If you however hook up the S-Video or RCA leads from the 171MP to that fancy progressive scan DVD player you will be able to get a video signal for each one.

Personally, it was difficult to tell the difference between the two, but it looks as though the RCA leads (L/R Audio, Video) offer a better picture for DVD watching. The S-Video input on the 171MP would be good for playback from a digital video camera for instance.

Picture in Picture

With PIP you can watch TV while you work on the computer. The picture size in this setting is a bit small to watch a program with, but a larger size can be used, or it can just as easily be switched to full-screen for the best possible viewing. Keep in mind that the image quality is very good for an LCD, but because of the dimensions of the 171MP an algorithm is at work, so the quality is not like that of a standard TV. Video pictures translate much better on to the 171MP than the TV, but both are still relatively quite good, and we had no really gripes to speak of.