TV-Out Quality? Help Please!

[Hipnotik]

I put together a system for a media center and everything is perfect except for the TV-Out quality.

What I see is black bars on the left and right sides of the TV, and of course the operating system and application use is way too blurry to even use, but my main concern is when I play DVD's the picture has horrizontal streak lines going across, to the point where it effects the resolution borders and kinda warps them. On a regular monitor, this does not happen.

I don't have the best TV on the market, it's just a basic 32inch Sharp (or similar) that only has RCA connections in the back for input.

So, I had to basically get an S-Video to RCA adapter to it would connect to my TV. Will this effect my output quality in any way?

I have yet to use TV-Tool so I will give that a go when I get home, but I'm pessimistic that it will alleviate my main movie viewing problems.

I'm just hoping that this can be resolved w/ a better GFX card. *crosses fingers*


My Current setup is:

P4 2.0GHz
512MB RAM
ABIT V-17 Mobo
GeForce 3 Ti 64MB w/ TV-Out (S-Video)
Seagate 120GB HDD


Obviously my GFX card is pretty ancient, and i'm currently looking at a couple different cards to improve TV-Out:

BFG Asylum 128MB OC (Overclocked) with nVidia's GeForce FX 5500 3DChip

Powercolor ATI Radeon 9250 256MB 128 bit AGP with DVI+CRT+TV-Out outputs



are any of these cards worthy of purchase for the sole use of TV-Out (Movies, Vids only)?

Also, is this project just a giant waste of time given the TV I have? Does anyone else out there have jsut a basic TV w/ RCA connections that has outstanding (or bearable) TV-Out video quality?

Any help greatly appreciated!
Hipnotik

[Hipnotik]

ok i guess i can just summarize everything by saying i'm looking for a good tv-out gfx card between the price range of 100 - 200$ usd.

and if one of these cards would look good on a basic TV...

[yoda313]

ok i guess i can just summarize everything by saying i'm looking for a good tv-out gfx card between the price range of 100 - 200$ usd.

and if one of these cards would look good on a basic TV...

Hello,

PLEASE don't BUMP your own topic for at least a couple of days


HERE:

https://www.videohelp.com/capturecards

There may be something there for you.

If not just check out bestbuy or circuit city and do a price range search

Kevin

[Hipnotik]

i'm not looking for a capture card, just the quality of a good tv-out gfx card on a basic tv...

[lordsmurf]

"horrizontal streak lines" is INTERLACE
"black bars on the left and right sides of the TV" is OVERSCAN

ATI output is excellent.

Though I question the entire setup. Why not get a DVD player for DVDs? It will ALWAYS look better that way.

[monzie]

Horizontal streaks on TV-out are usually caused by (do they go slightly diagonally in 'waves'?):

a) a low signal strength...those rca's shouldnt really be over about 5ft MAX in length

and

b) even then they still carry a week signal and are PRONE to interference noise from outside sources due to their lack of shielding.

So use S-Video.

Ensure to route the S-video signal cable AWAY from external power points or other sources of interferance...which is NOT as easy as you may think with a typical pc's spaghetti wiring round the back.

The black bars are due to you not setting up your gfx card correctly for your TV out...and possibly the media player you are using...nothing beats Zoomplayer for TV-out work.

If your TV only has RCA's (are you sure it doesnt have a S-Video input next to the RCA's...most do) then I would buy a good secondhand (or even a new TV) that has a good range of inputs BEFORE buying a new gfx card.

...any of the ATI 9000 range will give excellent TV-out.....and are a dam site easier to navigate around the settings than equivalent nVidia's (imo).

also.

.. I was a dedicated TV-out user BEFORE I invested in an avi enabled DVD player (available from only £30 here in the UK), so why not get a new (or secondhand) TV and invest in an avi enabled DVD player, then for gaming, viewing photo's etc you can then use a S-video cable.

As for the desktop, that will ALWAYS look poor, due mainly to the FONTS on your desktop not having enough pixels at the TV end..enabling larger fonts and icons can help here..but your desktop will look like crap on your monitor.

[lalkana]

IMHO, the only real TV out is from the Matrox cards. I have the G500 and get great previews of editing and DVD menu creations. The cards start at about $100 and go up from there. These cards are dedicated to video work and are not meant for those dedicated to gaming. I had a Rainbow Runner in my very first video system and will never be satisfied with other cards again.

[gll99]

Did you try tvtool to see if it's compatible with your current card? It will get rid of the black overscan borders, improve sharpness and significantly reduce the flicker. There is a time limited (15 minutes per use) trial available. I used an older version of the prog with my geforce2 mx400 card before it went belly up.

[monzie]

Did you try tvtool to see if it's compatible with your current card? It will get rid of the black overscan borders, improve sharpness and significantly reduce the flicker. There is a time limited (15 minutes per use) trial available. I used an older version of the prog with my geforce2 mx400 card before it went belly up.

But everything TVTOOL does can be done within the Settings anyway..so why?

[gll99]

Did you try tvtool to see if it's compatible with your current card? It will get rid of the black overscan borders, improve sharpness and significantly reduce the flicker. There is a time limited (15 minutes per use) trial available. I used an older version of the prog with my geforce2 mx400 card before it went belly up.

But everything TVTOOL does can be done within the Settings anyway..so why?

Maybe with some boards. I don't know for sure but with my card the built in adjustments did not correct the black area around the video. The video card drivers compensated for the overscan and created a black border all around. Expanding the frame just tucked the video under the black border. Tvtool fixed that for me. That's why I suggested it. It is possible that this was corrected with newer nvidia versions. There is one feature that it also does: tvtool removes macrovision from the output signal so that your software dvd player will output the signal to your tv-out. DVDIdle will also do that.