Improving Computer -> TV resolution

[island]

I am looking for a video setup that will allow me to send movies from my computer to a projector as well as a TV (in case the projector goes down). My current video card is an ASUS Radeon a9200se, which has worked thus far, but I am wondering if there is an upgrade I might get that is specifically made for displaying to TVs/projectors.

My biggest concern is that the resolution looks poor on the TV. Is this inherent to the TV itself or is there some hardware/software enhancements I could make to improve it?

Thanks to anyone who posts.

[Baldrick]

what kind of tv? you can't do much for standard tvs....if you want better picture you need a new lcdtv,plasmatv,projector with higher resolution.

[Cornucopia]

TV looks like poor resolution because compared to Computer resolutions, it IS poor resolution.

Computer:
VGA=640x480p@24bitcolor,>60Hz
SVGA=800x600p@24bitcolor,>60Hz
...(all the rest are better still)...

TV:
SD=720(or704)x480i@~12-16bitcolor,29.97Hz (or you could say 720x240p@~12-16bitcolor,59.94Hz)

So you have losses here:
Resolution
Interlacing/FrameRate
ColorBitDepth


Best way to minimize the loss is to pre-process you material to make best use of the final output.

1. Do a Bicubic/Lanczos resize down to exactly the size you need (keeping non-square pixels in mind). May want to try small blur/USM effect (particularly in Vertical dimension) to get rid of some interlace jitter.
2. Keep your contrast down by using level control so 0-255 input brightness becomes 16-235 output brightness, and keep color gamut down by using very modest Color Bit Depth reduction (posterize).
3. Most importantly, use an output chain that maintains high "broadcast" quality throughout. Minimum would be S-Video out (to maintain semi color component structure). Don't know how ATI ranks there, but I would guess 4-5 on scale of 1-10. There are much better dedicated boards (read $$$) out there.

Another option would be to export/convert/screencap to DV-AVI file and output via firewire to DV camera and pass-through to Analog.

Or there are outboard "Scan Converter" boxes that take VGA/DVI signal and output a component/Svideo/composite signal.

HTH,
Scott

[redwudz]

If your TV/Projector has S-video inputs, you can try that. It's OK for video, but poor for text reading. Your card seems to have that output. Component video is better for these uses, but you would need a different video card. Composite video is poor quality on a TV/Projector. But your card doesn't seem to have that unless your S-video incorporates it. There would be a adapter included with the card, though.

Or if you have HDMI, DVI or VGA inputs on your TV/Projector you could use, but again, you would need a different video card. DVI or HDMI should get you the best quality as the digital video won't need conversion to analog.

First determine what inputs your TV/Projector have, then you can see what format video out you would need.

[edDV]

Also figure out the native display resolution of the projector and try to match that. A projector model number would help for matching the optimal display card.