Connecting a TV to Computer

[Spooner]

I want to use my video card and computer DVD player as my theater dvd player in my bedroom to take advantage of the nice speakers i have connected to computer.

when i connect my tv to the machine, it auto-fixes the resolution of the TV and cuts off all sides meaning if you want to see what's going on in the bottom of the screen you need to scroll down to view it.

Any way to correct this? How would DVD playback look like this?

 

[Spooner]

bump for help

 

[PCNerdDude]

Its not normal for the screen to cut off. I won't fully trust the auto-fix.
What type of card do you have. If you have a Radeon follow these instructions (they are for a 9800 pro, but they should work with any radeon). Right click on your desktop and click on Settings, then Advanced and then Displays. Select TV. You should now see everything on your desktop with nothing cut off. These instructions are basically the same for Nvidia-based cards to. The menus may be a bit different, but you should get the idea. Good luck.

 

[Spooner]

I do have an ATI Radeon 9800Pro and I select the TV the way you describe. So now I have the picture on my regular monitor and my TV, the display on the TV is still "Cut-off" to the face where I have to scroll in order to see it all

help

 

[Spooner]

then when i go to change the resolution to a smaller one in order for it to fit ont he TV, it changes the resolution for both the monitor and the TV

ugh

 

[todpod]

I know that on my old ATI AIW 128 you had to have the screen resolution set to 800x600 or less or you would be scrolling the picture. Not sure about newer ones though.

 

[Spooner]

Originally posted by: todpod
I know that on my old ATI AIW 128 you had to have the screen resolution set to 800x600 or less or you would be scrolling the picture. Not sure about newer ones though.

I got it to which it is only displayed on the TV and lower the resolution to 800x600 and it seems to work fine at that resolution, but i have to change it and switch over to the TV (way too many steps)

i thought i'd be able to run dual dispalys with dual resolutions

 

[todpod]

On mine you can't do that not sure about the newer ones. I agree way to many steps and 800x600 sucks.

 

[Spooner]

Originally posted by: todpod
On mine you can't do that not sure about the newer ones. I agree way to many steps and 800x600 sucks.

 

[todpod]

I Looked at the manuel on ATI's web site , From the quick look I don't think you can do what you want to do. I am far from an expert though. The manuel does talk about using to video cards, you probably could make that work.

 

[bigpow]

Try lower resolution(s)

Max TV Out res. is only 1024x768, if you're running higher res then you'll get the scrolling effect.

 

[todpod]

He wants to treat it like a dual monitor setup, One resolution for his monitor and one for the TV.

 

[Spooner]

Originally posted by: bigpow
Try lower resolution(s)

Max TV Out res. is only 1024x768, if you're running higher res then you'll get the scrolling effect.

It sets itself to 1024x768... witht that, i have to scroll

the only way i can get it to work is to manually change to only display TV and set it down to 800x600. But then when i change it back to monitor, i have to manually reset the resolution back to 1280xwhatever.

No way to have it auto-save two different resolutions?

 

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: Spooner

Originally posted by: bigpow
Try lower resolution(s)

Max TV Out res. is only 1024x768, if you're running higher res then you'll get the scrolling effect.

It sets itself to 1024x768... witht that, i have to scroll

the only way i can get it to work is to manually change to only display TV and set it down to 800x600. But then when i change it back to monitor, i have to manually reset the resolution back to 1280xwhatever.

No way to have it auto-save two different resolutions?

Not that I know of. If your card has dual RAMDACs (which it does), you should be able to turn on the second monitor (just as if you were using two VGA monitors), and have two completely independent displays -- one on the VGA out, and the other on the S-Video out. I do this with a RADEON 9600 for my HTPC, and it works just fine.

 

[Auric]

1024 is the max the monitor can be so that when cloned to the TV, scrolling is not necessary on it. However, since the goal is to watch videos the solution is to enable Theater Mode on the Overlay tab. Then, video played on the monitor, even in a window or minimized, will be displayed full-screen on the TV. Some adjustment may be necessary under the TV button on the Displays tab. When video is playing, a Video button appears which may be selected. This is easiest but may crop some of the image. The best result can be achieved manually using the arrow buttons. If it is a 4:3 TV then it may be helpful to play back a known true 1.33 AR video (or a widescreen one can be manipulated to vertically stretch in many players). This way the AR will be true and the edges well defined with colour to aid in adjustment.