TV Out

[OwenTMoL]

Thanks, That's really great.
Appreciated.

[mr_anderson187]

along the same lines guys, like displaying things on otrher formats, im thinking of trying to use my small sony flatscreen television as a secondary monitor for my pc, or a primary one if i can (i think i can) im just wondering what the quality is like, its mainly for playing games like ut2004, halo, cs, and bf1942, would it be good enough display to do this? the pc card connects to the tv via a s-video lead, and the grfx card is a 9600 pro

ne ideas?

[itsanobscureid]

Depends what inputs you have on your TV. Theres four major types atm:

Composite - single phono - nasty quality
SVideo - mini DIN plug, sort of like a PS/2 keyboard but with 4 connectors - OK quality
SCART - big 21pin connector - can carry RGB (great quality), Svideo or composite.
Component - three phonos - best quality

(ok some tellies have DVI as well, and theres a few other standards up and coming - but this is all is likely to be there).

Tell us what you've got and we'll be able to give you more of a hand

sorry to thread hijack here - but i have a burning question
my new tv has component in which is supposed to be the best quality but how do i get component out of my graphics cards - i can't seem to find any vga to component video cables anywhere ?

any help would be much appreciated, as always

[Stoo]

You should be able to get s-video to component leads

[Rythmic]

Hmmm - never seen s-video to component - not sure thats even possible without a lot of circuitry.

The only way AFAIK to get component out of a PC atm is to get a Radeon 9500 or abouve and ATIs DVI to HDTV adaptor: http://www.videocapturecard.com/hdtvaiwr8500.html (never seen them for sale in the UK - but this place ships internationally). Make sure you have 4.7 catalysts though (allows you to tweak the HDTV signal).

OwenTMoL - did you get you TV sorted out in the end?

[itsanobscureid]

The only way AFAIK to get component out of a PC atm is to get a Radeon 9500 or abouve and ATIs DVI to HDTV adaptor: http://www.videocapturecard.com/hdtvaiwr8500.html (never seen them for sale in the UK - but this place ships internationally). Make sure you have 4.7 catalysts though (allows you to tweak the HDTV signal).

cheers rythmic that looks like what i need for my 9500np - any idea how much better image quality it will provide over svideo ?

tar

[Rythmic]

Depends on your telly - but final quality will be much closer to monitor territory.

If your tv supports it, it can also provide you with progressive scan (normal for monitors) instead of interlaced scan (normal for tvs) - instead of updating every other line in each pass, you update each line each pass. Removes the "comb" effect on fast moving images - so everything appears sharper.

Also if you've bought a nice big telly that supports it, you can use different resolutions via component as well, including widescreen resolutions (up to 1920x1080! though support for this is rare).

Have a look through your tv manual for HDTV, DTV or ETV resolutions. You should find one of the following resolutions:

480i - standard TV output (i for interlaced)
480p - standard TV rez, progressive scan
720i / 720p 1280x720 interlaced and progressive respectively
1080i - (no 1080p unfortunately) 1920x1080 big - but 720p is better for fast moving images

Most devices with component only support 640p at the moment, but it's worth a try Also note that these are input resolutions, which the TV may scale to match it's native rez.

Theres a whole bunch more to this (do a google) but these are the basics. By all accounts, there a whole bunch of tweaking you'll want to do to get a perfect image on these - but it's the best quality TV image you'll get.

[itsanobscureid]

top stuff - cheers for laying that out rythmic - as you say it looks like there is a lot of googlin to be done ....
should be good tho as the tv i have bought - toshiba 28zd26p has both 100hz and progressive scan ... the connector suggested looks the way forward for best quality
ill order one and let you all know how i get on ...

thx again