Controller for TFT LCD Monitor: Tips & Suggestions

[ballz]

My team is looking to control a TFT LCD monitor, similar to the computer monitors we use everyday. We were thinking of taking the LCD out of the monitor (or buying a brand new LCD screen) so we're looking to control the pure LCD, not the VGA input/output, but heard from some other people that it would be insane to try to directly control the LCD screen. A suggestion was to get a DVI driver chip and hook that up to our controller. Is this a good suggestion?

Also, we're trying to keep the whole project compact as possible (like macbook air) and thought to control the LCD directly was the only way. Any suggestions in this?

Can someone point me in the right direction of picking a controller? am I going about this in the correct way? I am under the assumtion that a regular microcontroller will not work for a TFT LCD and will need a specialized controller for this project.

 

[MATLABdude]

What's this for? A school prototype, or some sort of commercial device / prototype? If it's for the former, you're probably better off using computer hardware. If it's the latter, you may still be better off using the former, depending on how fancy you want this LCD display (a small 128x64 or some such is pretty easy to drive, but the bigger ones, not so much), how much hardware experience you or your team have, and how much time you have / want to throw at this.