General question regarding TV Output

[Shaftatplanetquake]

I've used, for tv out, the following products that I can remember:

Voodoo 3 3500 TV (can't remember if it was svideo or component)
Geforce 2 MX Svid out
Geforce 3 ti200 Svid out
Radeon original 64 Meg Vivo Svid Out
Radeon original 32 Meg all in wonder maybe svid maybe composite maybe both
Generic Card, can't remember the name , composite out
Radeon 9800se svid out
Radeon x850xt Component HDTV Output

Every last one of these outputs to a television has been poor. The color hues are all wrong, text looks horrible, the edges of the screen are badly bowed in or bowed out, blurry picture, grainy picture, you name it. I've tried in each case to improve the quality by changing the settings which are available. I've also tried removing the other displays from the configurations and just using the TV. I've also tried multiple TVs throughout the years. I've also tried adjusting settings on the different televisions. I've tried reboots. I've tried cold boots. I've dealt with this issue in the following operating systems: windows 98se, windows 2000, and windows XP. Even with telelvision displays that were far larger than the computer monitor the quality has suffered so much I've never been able to justify using it even for just watching movies.

I thought that with my new 50 inch plasma television and my X850xt having component out would solve these problems and the output would look good. I figured maybe it was an analog->digital thing and I wouldn't get good results until I changed interfaces and left behind the old composite/svideo stuff. The component looks as bad as anything I've seen before.

I have never hooked up a computer to any input on any tv and had it look decent. The only thing I have seen which looked good was a VGA connection to a projector.

My current TV doesn't have DVI or VGA. Should I try a DVI->HDMI adapter to plug into my 50 inch plasma?

Is there a technical reason why the formatting of the picture is poor in each and every case that I can remember?

Do I need a special video card in order to enjoy quality output to a television?

 

[Shaftatplanetquake]

Jebus I hope I didn't type all that for nothing.

 

[thilanliyan]

I'm not sure if this is the reason but unless you run at the native resolution of the TV then the picture will be crap won't it?

Like you I've also had poor luck outputting to a widescreen CRT TV using component cables. Picture is very blurry and desktop is almost unreadable. I've also tried different resolutions but even then it doesn't make the picture look very good.

 

[Shaftatplanetquake]

Originally posted by: thilan29
I'm not sure if this is the reason but unless you run at the native resolution of the TV then the picture will be crap won't it?

Like you I've also had poor luck outputting to a widescreen CRT TV using component cables. Picture is very blurry and desktop is almost unreadable. I've also tried different resolutions but even then it doesn't make the picture look very good.

I know DVD movies don't run at the native resolution of my TV. My set top divx player doesn't either. Niether does my ps2, or old school sega saturn. But the colors still look like they are supposed to look, text is sharp, there is no grain or blur, and the edges are where they should be, at the edges of the display rather than bowed in or out.

Also, I've done all the resolution and refresh rate configuration that I can possibly do given the software limitation and it never does get to where I can consider the picture to be acceptable.

I think TV out has been an afterthought and never has a manufacturer focused on doing it right. I am lost for an explanation when I search one out for how in the world there was a whole segment of the market which focused on Media Center PCs. Its like there is some kind of a huge secret that nobody has let me in on.

 

[jtvang125]

I've got my HTPC hooked to my HDTV with dvi -> hdmi cable and it looks fine. The text are a little hard to read if I set the resolution to 1900x1080 so I leave it at 1280x720 and let my tv upscale it to 1080p. Definitely try using DVI instead.