Is there any hardware/software I can put between my computer and t.v. so I can view my video files on the t.v. rather than the computer monitor? Thanks.
Your choice is between a video capture card that has TV out (the ATI All-in-wonder-cards and several others). You can search the forums for links to discussions on which is best. There is also similar hardware that plugs into your USB port and has TV Out. With either, you'd run a cable from the new device to your tv, s-video being higher quality than standard rca connectors, component (not composite even better, but both the tv and pc hardware would have to have the 3 wire connectors). With the all-in-wonder you also have to set it up to switch between monitors but that's explained in the manual.
Get yourself a graphics card with TV out. Anything from Nvidia (GF2mx twinview, GF3. GF4mx or GF4000 series) just ensure it has TV out on the rear of the card (usually S-video) or any ATI graphic card with TV out, (I use an ATI 9000pro (about £50) and get fantastic results AND its a pretty good gaming card too). Beware though that most Nvidia and ATI cards ONLY allow movies to be shown on one monitor at a time (either the TV only or the monitor only) and you MUST select the correct DEFAULT monitor to correspond with the the monitor/TV that you are going to view the movie on. Read my other posts for more info on watching xvid movies. Hope I've helped. MONZAMAN
Hi - I'm trying to do a similar thing: get a demo reel I put together in After Effects onto a VHS tape - I've made both avi and quicktime versions that play okay on my computer - as for a video card, it's a GForce3 with output capabilities, though this is the first time I've tried using it for that - I have the appropriate cable from my video card to my VCR,and my VCR connected to my tv alright, but I'm still not sure how to view an avi or quicktime on my tv. Is there some kind of software that should have come with my video card that I'm supposed to be using for this, or should the movie just appear on the tv at the same time as I play the files in a media player on my computer? Sorry - I'm sure this is a very basic question, but I'm new to this and I'm not too sure how it works. Any help would be greatly appreciated - thanks!
Hotrocks: First try bypassing the vcr and go straight into the tv, if that works, then it's probably that you have to set your vcr to input1 or 2 instead of "line". Also possible, you may have to go into your display settings to choose which output to use, monitor or tv out. You can get to your display settings by right clicking on the desktop or through control panel. It would have a tab for monitors. You'll know you're hooked up right as soon as you see the windows desktop on your tv
Hey thanks, Comwizz! I didn't know that about the display settings, but now I do - fantastic. I think I'm almost there - my main problem is that I can't get it to play for more that 15 seconds on my tv before it reverts to its monitor settings. There's a warning telling me this will happen if I have something set wrong - but I can't figure what it is - are there any main things I should watch out for besides NTSC and resolution? The other problem is sound, but I have a feeling I don't have the right hardware for this - the cable from my video card is one of those ones with one connection (four prongs in the connection) - I have that in turn hooked up to an RCA cable - but only the video portion of that cable, audio is dangling free - and then that RCA cable goes into the VCR/tv. I guess for audio to work, I'll need something like a spliter that will connect both the video and audio to the single connection coming from the computer. Am I right? Does such a item exist? If so, does anyone know what it's called? Perhaps I'm way off base here, maybe there's a better way. Thanks for the help!
Okay wait! Before you all deride me, I've solved my own problems! First of all, because the resolution on my tv is so bad, I couldn't see that it was asking me a "click yes if this is okay" question - that's why it was reverting back after fiteen seconds! As for sound, oh man - of course I can't get sound out of a video card - audio's gotta come from the audio card! Oh man - what a goofy mistake! Anyway, thanks for helping - perhaps others will learn from my silly mistakes!
I think we've all gone through this at the beginning. But when it starts to work it's a great feeling.
