Your desktop appears fuzzy on your TV simply because of the difference in resolution. Your desktop probably has a resolution of 1024x768 or greater, so a small letter on your computer monitor might be represented by a 6x8 grid of dots, making it appear sharp. Your TV, on the other hand, has a fixed resolution of about 680x510 no matter how big it is, unless it is a newer digital TV. Because it has a lower resolution, that same sharp 6x8 grid displaying a character on your monitor has to squeeze into about a 4x5.3 grid of dots on your TV. Also, since the dots on your TV cover a bit more than a single dot output by the computer, several dots are blended together, so the clearly defined black character on a white background output by the computer looks like a grey blob on the TV. One way to make things look better is to lower the computer's resolution to 640x480 or slightly higher, so the dots are not blended as much. You could also keep the same resolution, but make everything bigger, though it would have about the same effect. The other, much more expensive option, is to get a video card that outputs component video or through DVI and get a digital TV that has the corresponding inputs. That would make everything look great at any resolution. While a TV might not be good for most computer applications, it is great for playing videos. Most computer videos have a fairly low resolution, so playing them full screen stretches them out, and displaying it on a TV squishes them back down and they look about as good as anything else on TV. If you try to play videos through your TV, but they just show up black, then you probably need to set the TV as the primary output. As I said above, the 7 pin port on your computer is perfectly compatible with 4 pin S-video. It is simply a way to jam 2 outputs into one plug. The 4 outer pins line up with an S-video cable and output in S-video format. 2 of the inner 3 pins output in composite format for use with cables made for such ports. -Charles
Thanks charles.....What kind of video card would have that..also my tv has dvi..i dont know what this means but it has it....also my tv is a 2003 toshiba 56 inch high def
DVI stands for Digital Visual Interface. It is a way to send digital video. VGA and S-video send analog signals because their intended destination is a CRT monitor or TV, which is inherently analog. If you plug a digital display into your computer using VGA or S-video, then the signal gets converted to analog by your video card and then converted back to digital by the display, resulting in a loss of video quality. Now that many displays are LCDs or Plasma screens, which are inherently digital, more displays and video cards have DVI, which allows the digital signal output by the computer to be sent directly to the display without losing quality. I can't recommend any particular video card. You can try searching for one here http://www.google.com/search?q=video+card+DVI . Find cards in your price range, then search for reviews. If you have an open AGP slot, then you could get a cheapo card just for your TV but keep the one you have for games etc. If you want to play games on your TV, then you will need a more expensive card, but it would replace the one you have, so you could sell your old one (unless it is part of the motherboard). If you have a laptop, then you will need a PCMCIA card with DVI. You will also need a DVI cable unless the card comes with one. There are actually three different types of DVI ports/connectors. DVI-D is digital only. DVI-A is analog only. DVI-I is both. Make sure that both the TV and the card have DVI-D or DVI-I. -Charles
Thanks for all the help I really appreciate it.On my tv is has 3 s-video ports....Can i plug the div-d into these also?So basically what your saying is that the fuzzy screen is normal and the only way i would be able to play Counter-strike(the game i'm trying to play on my tv) is if i get a new video card with dvi?
If your TV has a DVI port, then it should look like this: http://www.rhein-strasse.de/archives/image2003/20031208a.jpg S-video carries an analog signal, so it cannot connect directly to DVI. You could play Counter-Strike on your TV using an S-video connection, but you might not be able to read small text, which would make it difficult to communicate, or even find a good server. -Charles
Hey my nVIDIA GeForce Ti 4600 has a dvi out port and my tv has one to.So all i need to do is buy a dvi-d cable and hook it up? Thanks Travis p.s. do you play cs?
So what your sayin is that to be able to play games on my tv i am going to need to get a dvi-d cable?I checked and my tv has a dvi port and my video card has one too.
Yes, that should work. I don't play Counter-Strike. I am not any good at first person shooters. I tend to prefer old Nintendo and DOS games. -Charles
I just bought a Monster DVI 400 cable.Im going to try to hook it up now and i will let you know how it goes. Thanks for all the help. Travis
.......After i pluged it in and turned my tv on and switched it to DVI channel nothin came up.Do i need to change a setting on my computer? lol it shouldent be this hard Thanks Travis
Probably. I have never used DVI and the software is different for every video card, so I don't know how to set it up. My guess is that you should go to Control Panel -> Display -> Settings tab -> Advanced and look for a setting there that allows you to switch the DVI output on. If your video card came with any applications, you might check there too. -Charles
I couldent find the setting.....This is starting to piss me off so i think im gona screw it and just play on my tv... Thanks anyways Travis
Hhmm. I did a bit more web searching and found that some TVs use HDCP (High-bandwidth Digital Copy Protection), which makes it incompatible with video cards that don't support it. You might check to see if your TV has that. Another possibility is that your TV only supports certain resolutions and refresh rates. Check your TV's manual. If you can't find that information in the manual, then you could try different combinations of settings and see if they work, but it might be possible to damage your TV by trying to use it with an unsupported resolution or refresh rate (though I'm not sure why it would). -Charles
hey you people wouldnt know how to convert an svideo cable to composite? i have modified 2 ps2 mouse cables into svideo cables and they work fine..but i need to know how to make it composite without buying an adapter
You convert S-video (seperate video) into composite video by amplitude modulating the two chrominance signals in quadriture on a 3.579545 MHz subcarrier and adding it to the luminance signal, and then adding 8-10 cycles of the subcarrier after each horizontal sync pulse. In other words, you would have to be an electrical engineer to do it yourself, and buying a single set of parts to build your own converter, which probably wouldn't work on the first try, might cost more than buying a mass-produced converter. -Charles
nope..did it faster than i thought it would take...there are only 2 main outputs on the svideo cable..the other 2 are for clarification..in other words..to sharpen the picture..but the 2 main connectors i hace found out are the top 2 pins one on each side the 2 below those are the "extra" output i am actually running on my tv with my homemade s-video/composite adapter as i am typing this message..go computer knowledge! _X_X_X_X_X_[small]AMD Athlon 64 FX 53 GF FX6800 2GB PC3500 Corsair XMS Ram SB Audigy Platinum Pro[/small]
I read up on S-video a bit more, and it turns out you did a neat trick even though you have no clue what you are talking about. To produce color video in the line by line format that TVs use, you need three signals. For computer monitors, those signals are commonly red, green, and blue. For TVs, those signals are commonly luminance and two chrominance signals. The electrical engineers who designed color television found a neat way to jam the three signals (and an audio signal) into one signal in such a way that it was still compatible with black and white televisions and still fit within the 6 MHz bandwidth already assigned to TV channels. That jammed together signal (without the audio) is called composite video for that reason. I had wrongly assumed that S-video separated the video into luminance and two separate chrominance signals on three different pins and that the third pin was ground. Actually, it separates the luminance signal, but keeps the chrominance signals modulated together in quadrature at the same subcarrier. The other two pins are separate grounds for each of those two signals. Giving the two analog signals separate ground wires reduces noise and separating the chrominance from luminance means a low-pass filter is no longer required to separate the two signals internally. Applying a low-pass filter to a signal makes it fuzzier. Since the chrominance signals are still modulated together, you don't have to do any modulation to convert the signal as I thought. You actually just have to add the signals using an analog adder. What you did was an interesting trick. You plugged the luminance signal into the composite in, but instead of plugging the luminance ground into ground, which would have given you the black and white image, you plugged the chrominance signal into ground. That way, an increase in the voltage on the chrominace line would cause less voltage between composite in and ground and vice versa. In other words, you effectively subtracted the chrominance signal from the luminance signal instead of adding it. That means the chrominance portion is 180 degrees out of phase, but because of the phase relative nature of the chrominance signal, it produces the same image. -Charles
I'm having a slight problem and this is the right titles thread, if the original poster doesn't mind me adding it here. I was wondering if upgrading from my current gforce FX 5200 to a ati 9800 pro would give me better resolution through the tv? _X_X_X_X_X_[small]Don't take a leak on a electric fence[/small]
actually changing video card wont make much of a difference..if you have the nvidia card presently try using the clone option under nview options so you use your desktop on the tv..for movies...etc
