Best way to connect a PC to a CRT TV?

[Kelemvor]

I have an old 27" TV that I have a PC hooked up to. The TV has standard S-Video and Component connections. I currently just use an old video card with an SVideo port on it and it works fine but the quality is obviously not real great during videos (TV Shows and movies).

Would I get a far better picture if I got some other type of video card that could use the component connection? If so, is there a card out there that anyoen could recommend? My budget is "as cheap as possible" since it works fine the way it is but I'm just looking to up the quality a bit.

I've seen some VGA to Component converters and I've also see the port that kind of looks like an SVideo port but with extra connections in it that you can get an adapter cable with that on one end and the component connectors on the other but I don't know anything about them.

Thanks.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Most of my 9600GSO cards came with component-out cables.

 

[Soundmanred]

If it's an SD CRT, you won't get much better than what you've got already.

 

[nenforcer]

Your sure it has component and not COMPOSITE (Yellow) RCA, right? Component is better than S-Video but like Soundmanred said if its an SD CRT it will be hard to notice a difference.

 

[Kelemvor]

Yes it has Component, it' show I connect my DVD player. And it's a SD CRT. The only time I notice problems is with shading when things get real pixelated.

I guess I'll probably keep what I have or look at something like VL mentioned above.

 

[SonicIce]

it won't look any different than s-video unless you examined it in side by side screenshots

 

[0roo0roo]

It doesn't really get any better as said, sd tv is horrible, so the video card makers generally didn't spend any effort polishing the turd. You are lucky if you get to adjust the over scan and flicker a bit, other than that its still just going to be mushy mess.

 

[TurtleCrusher]

I did this this a long time ago with my Radeon x1650 and my Geforce 5500 to push four monitors in XP. I had the Radeon doing my main 22" and my 32" RCA Home Theater CRT Tv.

While switching back and forth from s-video (4pronged) and RCA (Y-R-Wh) the difference was extremely clear. The S-video was much clearer, colorful and correct. The RCA was god awful.

I'm a huge supporter of S-video being used over RCA if you can because of this. Think about it. S-video has each prong connecting to a color. Red, Blue, Green and White is what each prong represents. Instead of mashing them all together on RCA (which causes blotches and very imperfect whites, blacks and colors), S-video has a different picture for each color and your tv puts it all together. Think of it as your TV taking four pictures per frame and using the best while RCA just snaps out whatever it can onto the screen.

Edit: Looks like you actually have component. I've never bought a retail GPU and not received adequate component adapters. They all should be fine.

 

[0roo0roo]

you are thinking about composite. he's referering to component...or maybe he's mistaken. component is superior to s-video which is not that separated out.

*edit guess you edited

 

[Kelemvor]

I left out the composite and Coax connections on my TV because those I wouldn't even consider. I know that generally SVideo is second and component would be first as far as quality but I didn't know how that related to a PC and getting a new video card.

I'll just stick with my SVideo since it works well enough.

Thanks.

 

[Iron Woode]

I have an old 27" TV that I have a PC hooked up to. The TV has standard S-Video and Component connections. I currently just use an old video card with an SVideo port on it and it works fine but the quality is obviously not real great during videos (TV Shows and movies).

Would I get a far better picture if I got some other type of video card that could use the component connection? If so, is there a card out there that anyoen could recommend? My budget is "as cheap as possible" since it works fine the way it is but I'm just looking to up the quality a bit.

I've seen some VGA to Component converters and I've also see the port that kind of looks like an SVideo port but with extra connections in it that you can get an adapter cable with that on one end and the component connectors on the other but I don't know anything about them.

Thanks.

I used to use my old 27" Toshiba for my HTPC using s-video and component.

On older CRT TVs the component connection is usually analog, not digital. Nvidia cards output a digital signal and will not work properly. My ATI card worked fine on component but I suspect it was split off from the s-video.

YMMV