a few questions...

[ledzepp98]

ok, a little intro...my sister-in-law gave me her old computer. basically, it's a k6-2 450, 160megs ram, 6gig hd, isa sb16, pos 2meg pci vid card, creative 2x dvd w/dxr2 decoder and pass through cable. i have been playing around with it for a few hours and i figured i could use it as a "stand alone" dvd player and just pop it in the cabinet next to my tv. well, to my surprise the s-video out on the decoder card has a slightly different connector than the cable that came with my geforce gts video card and the connector on my tv (and the tv is much older than the decoder card). ok, here are the questions...

is there some sort of converter/adapter for the 2 different s-video connectors?

how should i hook up the sound? do i use the spdif out on the decoder card or do i use a y-cable (rca cable? not sure what it is called) from the sound card to the audio inputs on the tv?


this will be my first attempt at actually using s-video and trying to play dvd's on the tv. with this setup can i expect decent quality? any help/comments is appreciated. and i know stand alone dvd players are cheap...but this is free and i like to play...

 

[bex0rs]

is there some sort of converter/adapter for the 2 different s-video connectors?

I'm pretty sure that a standard s-video cable fits into that card. If it's anything like a Hollywood+, it has a similar looking connector for VGA input from your video card. Be sure you're not trying to plug an s-video cable into that.


how should i hook up the sound? do i use the spdif out on the decoder card or do i use a y-cable (rca cable? not sure what it is called) from the sound card to the audio inputs on the tv?

The digital out will give you the best sound, and it will allow you to take advantage of the 5.1 output. If you want the sound to come out of your sound card, you'll need to hook up the internal audio cable that connects the decoder to your soundcard. I recall using some sort of registry "patch" on my Hollywood+ a while back that allowed audio output from my soundcard without use of the internal analog cable (ie. audio was transferred over the PCI bus digitally). That may or may not work with your creative card. (I forget, was it the dxr2 or dxr3 that was a Hollywood+ rebadge?) Also, if I recall correctly, there should be a standard 2 channel analog output on the decoder card which you can use with a "Y" cable, as you described.


this will be my first attempt at actually using s-video and trying to play dvd's on the tv. with this setup can i expect decent quality? any help/comments is appreciated. and i know stand alone dvd players are cheap...but this is free and i like to play...

S-video is real nice, especially on a higher end TV. 🙂


~bex0rs