Any way to improve TV Out output on Dell Inspiron?

[archcommus]

I have a Dell Inspiron I'd like to use as a DVD player to my widescreen TV. If I use a regular DVD player, it gives me the 16:9 option so that DVDs display properly. If I use TV Out on the Dell, however, it forces itself to 1024x768 resolution, which on the laptop results in larger letterboxes than I would normally see on my widescreen TV. Then that 4:3 image is sent to the TV, and then stretched to widescreen, resulting in a very narrow video. Is there any way, with hacked drivers, special software, or any other method, that I can get the video to output at a better resolution over TV Out? I'd really like to avoid spending $20+ on a DVI to component type cable.

Thanks.

 

[montypythizzle]

Which TV out are you using? The s-video or VGA? Sometimes tvs limit you on input res over VGA.

 

[archcommus]

It's s-video, so I'm sure it's capable of widescreen 480i (whatever resolution that is), but the laptop goes straight to 1024x768 when I activate that output.

 

[montypythizzle]

I believe s-video can only do interlaced video.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S-video
Well only NTSC and PAL, which are both interlaced formats.

Use the VGA to component if your TV can handle it (RGB>YPbPr) or just hook it up via a VGA cable.
Check Monoprice.com for cables.

To see if your TV can handle differing color spacings check it's manual.

 

[archcommus]

Isn't "interlaced" just the "i" part of the resolution? Does that somehow actually make s-video incapable of displaying any sort of 1.6:1 or 1.78:1 resolution?

 

[montypythizzle]

It is probably because your TV cannot handle that resolution, and yes the "i" means interlaced.

 

[archcommus]

The TV can do 1920x1080. I just found out two things, the second of which solves this problem. First, even though the only resolution choices when in TV Out mode appear to be 800x600 and 1024x768, you can go to Display Properties, Settings, Advanced, Adapter, List all modes..., and there are more choices there. Doing this I was able to get the laptop to output at 848x480 (1.77:1, almost 16:9) in TV Out mode. Secondly, though, I found that if I play back the DVD in Media Player Classic instead of Windows Media Player, it automatically zooms the DVD to fill the wide aspect laptop screen properly even if I'm still at 1024x768 (4:3) resolution. So I can leave it in that mode and just use MPC to play the video and it outputs to the widescreen TV over S-video perfectly.

Thanks for your help!