TV-out questions

[Lombardaga]

Is watching for example a DivX movie on a TV with a TV-out on your graphics card as good quality as watching a movie on the TV with your VCR or some TV-channel??
And must the cable you connect from your PC to your TV be short or doesn't it matter??
Can you place a TV-out in your comp. without having a TV-out based graphics card or isn't this possible???

 

[pdo]

I have a G400 DualHead. And watching Divx on my TV. The quality is awesome.

 

[2dfx]

I have a powercolor GF2 MX that has s-video and composite TV output. I heard s-video out is better but why? I'm using composite outuput the moment and the quality is ok, but is it worth getting a cable to use s-video out?

 

[Lombardaga]

up

 

[Lombardaga]

some answers on my questions would be very appreciated.

 

[JackMDS]

TV out is a video function, while the Graphic output to the computer Monitor is Digital, TV needs Analog signal. You need a graphic card that has on it TV decoder to be able to connect to TV.

Quality? It depends on the Graphic Card, as you see in the above posting, .paldo claim awesome quality, while 2dfx states OK. The Matrox G400 is known for Graphic quality, and so is the TV out.

Which is the best card available???? Do a review search.

 

[CQuinn]

<< Is watching for example a DivX movie on a TV with a TV-out
on your graphics card as good quality as watching a movie on
the TV with your VCR or some TV-channel?? >>



It Depends...
The short answer is it will look better on your computer because your
monitor can present good quality video at a higher resolution than the
TV can support.

If you have a fast enough system to quickly decode the video stream
from DivX, TV quality should be good. But you may notice some
pixellation and other effects on output if the CPU is on a high
load feeding the video out. My AMD K6-450 is barely able to send a
DivX video out to TV without such &quot;flicker&quot;, the quality as seen on
the monitor is much better.



<< And must the cable you connect from your PC to your TV be short
or doesn't it matter?? >>



I'd say shorter is better to avoid signal bleed, or outside RF 'noise'
affecting the presentation, but if all you're concerned about is the
signal to the TV, and not to save the video out to tape, then the lenght
up to a few meters should still be acceptable. I also think you can
find lines &quot;cores&quot; to attach to the cable or amplifiers to clean/boost the
signal over long lines.




<< Can you place a TV-out in your comp. without having a TV-out based
graphics card or isn't this possible??? >>



You will need some way of converting the VGA display to an NTSC signal
(or PAL in europe). There are adapters that will do that, but your
best bet is a card that does TV-out on its own.

2dfx:
S-Video uses more lines of resolution than TV quality, this can result
in much crisper/brighter video quality over a composite signal.
DVD quality video might look better being sent in thru an S-VHS reciever,
so too might games that are played at a high resolution.
If you can find a good deal on a cable, S-Video might be worth trying
out.

 

[Noriaki]

2dfx:
S-Video is higher resoulution than Composite. Composite matches a normal TV, so if you are using a normal TV the difference should be small. If you use an HDTV for example, Composite would ruin the signal. But for a regualr TV it doesn't really matter.

Lombardaga:
I stole my roommate's V3-3000 for a few days to test TV-out with my DVD player, it looked quite good. Better than a VHS in a VCR can do, but not near as good as being on my monitor.
I've never tried to do TV-out with a DivX but I imagine it's the same, it will be very nice quality, but not as good as your monitor can do.
The cable length doesn't really matter. I have a 12 foot gold plated double shielded composite/RCA cable, and about a 2&quot; S-Video to Composite adapter hanging off the card. It looks perfectly fine with that. I imagine a shorter cable is better, but if you use higher quality cabling you can use long ones.

 

[Syborg1211]

I have an ATI All-In-Wonder and the tv-out is excellent. I watch dvds all the time and it looks great. I also have a 3D Prophet ddr-dvi, and its tv-out is horrrrrrrible! I never use that to do stuff on my tv ever.

 

[Lombardaga]

thanks a lot for some extensive and good answers to my questions.

So have some of you tried out the Asus 6800 geforce256 w/ 32 MB DDR RAM with TV-out? Is this any good on a TV???

And how about the Asus V7100/T geforce2 MX w/32 MB SDR?How is the quality on a TV and PC monitor on this card??

 

[Lombardaga]

could anyone answer any of the questions bout the geforce/geforce2 MX cards?

 

[Syborg1211]

well, i am guessing that since the geforces are great chips and all that the companies did not spend too much time on the tv-out. If you want some awesome tv-out, get an ati tv wonder card. they are not too expensive. <100 i believe. If you look on pricewatch, it's 50 buck. That plus a geforce mx will still be pretty cheap and a bunch less than a geforce 2. With the tv wonder you know you are getting something with AWESOME tv out since the whole thing is dedicated to the tv.

 

[Auric]

Disinformation alert!
Video cards are digital. Standard monitors are analog (hence the need for a RAM Digital to Analog Convertor). Super-Video is not a higher resolution output. It simply seperates the signal into two channels: one for brightness and one for color. It is superior to composite (one channel) but inferior to component (three channel). S-VHS tape systems do allow for higher resolution recording and utilize S-Video cables.