Connecting an LCD monitor to s-video port of PC

[BS_done_right]

I am wondering if it is practical to connect the VGA (DE-15) port of a 19" 4:3 1280x1024 resolution LCD monitor to the s-video port on my GTX 260 graphics card. How much picture quality loss would I see? (the graphics card seems to output S-video at 1024x768 when connected to s-video input of an HDTV). Monoprice sells a $32 adapter that will make the conversion, but that seems a steep price.
http://www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?c_id=101&cp_id=10114&cs_id=1011407&p_id=...seq=1&format=2

The graphics card has 2 DVI ports and one S-video port. I currently have this monitor connected to my second DVI port, the first DVI port has a DVI > HDMI adapter that connects to a 26" 1080p LCD TV. I want to move the 19" monitor to the s-video port so that I can free up a DVI slot to connect a new 47" LED-LCD (with another DVI>HDMI adapter).

If I were to avoid connecting the 19" in the above described manner, my options seem to be:
1.) Put an HDMI switch on the first port to switch between 26" and 47" and leave the 19" on the 2nd DVI port. This might cause windows to change my default display to the 19" when I flip the switch.
2.) Buy a cheap 2nd graphics card for the 19" and put the 26" and 47" on the GTX. Since they will both be using DVI>HDMI adapters, which port will get the HDMI audio? Is the GTX (and/or Windows) smart enough to know output it to whichever screen has the program running on it?

--I realize that my graphics card can only output to 2 monitors at a time regardless, but that is not a problem because I only need to switch the video to the big screen to watch movies or play games (switching via windows is not a problem).

[usually_quiet]

S-Video supports resolutions up to 720x480 (NTSC) or 720 x 576 (PAL), for a standard definition TV.

So it appears you will have an SDTV picture, stretched to 1024x768 by the converter, which your monitor will then stretch to 1280x1024. It won't look good. However, $32 is inexpensive for a video converter. Look at the prices asked for some of the other types of video converters, and you will see what I mean.

DVI does not normally carry audio. Do you have audio now via a DVI to HDMI cable?

[edDV]

For S-Video, the 1024x768 refers to raster size before downsize to ~640x480 then D/A to analog Y/C. Since SD resolution is so poor, many use 800x600 to make computer text viewable at all over S-Video.

Alternate strategy...

Each DVI-I port is capable of driving two monitors, DVI-D and VGA. Further, DVI-D can be pin adapted to HDMI. In theory, one could make a DVI-I to Y cable with VGA and HDMI connectors.

The number of monitors displayable at the same time varies by display card. You could load up 4 monitors and see what the GTX-260 can do.

BTW: the GTX-260 reference design is audio capable over HDMI. Individual design implementations may or may not support audio. Check the specs for your board.

[edDV]

One could make an adapter like this with VGA+HDMI

[jagabo]

A word of warning: many graphics cards will not drive more than two outputs at the same time. So even if you connect three displays you may only be able to use two of them at a time.

And a 1024x768 desktop over s-video will look about like the image in this post:
https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/283861-VGA-to-S-video?p=1756748&viewfull=1#post1756748

[yoda313]

Do you have audio now via a DVI to HDMI cable?

That won't work. At least it hasn't for me. I have a ati all in wonder hd pci-e graphics card on my htpc. It has dvi and hdmi out. I get audio on my hdtv via the hdmi cable just fine. But when I use a dvi-hdmi cable there is no sound. In fact every time I plug in the dvi-hdmi cable ati pops up with a notice warning there won't be audio.

At least on hdtvs there are usually extra analog input plugs for audio via rca plugs. So you could simply get a headphone jack to rca splitter cable and hook that up to the rca input jack on the tv. In this case the monitor. However if this is a monitor not every monitor has a built in speaker system. So you would need external speakers anyway and those could hook up normally to the regular output jack on your sound card.

[usually_quiet]

Do you have audio now via a DVI to HDMI cable?

That won't work. At least it hasn't for me. I have a ati all in wonder hd pci-e graphics card on my htpc. It has dvi and hdmi out. I get audio on my hdtv via the hdmi cable just fine. But when I use a dvi-hdmi cable there is no sound. In fact every time I plug in the dvi-hdmi cable ati pops up with a notice warning there won't be audio.

At least on hdtvs there are usually extra analog input plugs for audio via rca plugs. So you could simply get a headphone jack to rca splitter cable and hook that up to the rca input jack on the tv. In this case the monitor. However if this is a monitor not every monitor has a built in speaker system. So you would need external speakers anyway and those could hook up normally to the regular output jack on your sound card.

Not every video card is able to provide audio via DVI, but I know that some can. Those that do can be configured to provide HDMI out with audio using a DVI port.

I just finished looking at one of the two GTX-260 cards Newegg still sells. It only had 2 connections and both were DVI-I. However, there was a S/PDIF cable that connects the card to the S/PDIF header on the motherboard, so it seems audio output using the DVI to HDMI adapter is possible with a VGA card based on this GPU.

[usually_quiet]

Since they will both be using DVI>HDMI adapters, which port will get the HDMI audio? Is the GTX (and/or Windows) smart enough to know output it to whichever screen has the program running on it?

If I run two programs with audio, I hear audio from both at once coming from the speakers. I think the same thing would happen running two monitors using your video card, since their audio source is a single sound card.

[BS_done_right]

One could make an adapter like this with VGA+HDMI


[Attachment 7098 - Click to enlarge]

That is as good a suggestion as I could have expected to get for my initial question ( I learned something about DVI). This cable + DVI>HDMI adapter would make the right connections but I couldn't know if/how the GTX would drive it.

It turns out that the cost of this cable is at minimum $25-30 and for that I found a second decent graphics card (Asus Radeon 5450 - $20) on sale at Microcenter. I got EVGA to send me a free 2nd DVI>HDMI adapter so I have the two big monitors hooked via HDMI on the GTX and the 19" via DVI on the Radeon. I get (the same) audio coming out of both HDMI cables and can set up the monitors any way I want.