Tuning ATi Radeon 9250 for S-Video

I just brought a ATI Radeon 9250. I have a VGA Monitor and my TV connected to it. I am using the S-Video connector on the card to connect to the TV. But the TV only has a composite/RCA connector. So I use a S-Video to RCA cable.

On the VGA Monitor, everything looks fine. But the quality of the video (whether I am playing a DVD or a MPEG4 file) is not good on the TV.

When I connect my Philips stand-alone DVD player to my TV using the same cable (ie, S-Video to RCA), the picture looks perfectly fine. I don't know why the Radeon produces same awful quality on the TV.

I tried tuning the Radeon card (eg, resolution, NTSC vs PAL, flickering, contrast/brightness, gamma), but to no avail. May be I am not tuning the card right.

Any help please..

It's more to do with the difference between video resolution supported by both display device's .

Tv having a much lower resolution than a pc monitor ... just live with it .

Under both ati and nvidia , cloning pc to tv will produce sub standard quality in picture (ati = glassy look / nvidia = warm colour look) .
For what it is , and with recent improvement's in chipset's ... it's not too shabby when comparing tv out from 5 year's ago .

Not sure if ati supports a similar feature as the nvidia "play on tv" from right click menu .
I do the second all the time ... work on pc , while everybody else watch's what I send to the tv .
This way , the resolution in output to tv , is defined by the video's resolution only .

But anything over dvd resolution would start to suffer anyway , unless you have a modern lcd tv , which has greater resolution than a standard tv unit .

===============

Krispy Kritter

The higher the resolution the TV can handle, the better the picture quality

Unfortunately ... it's the reverse ... if the original video clips resolution is lower than the maximum resolution supported by output display or chipset restriction ... it's referred to as "upscaling" ... and the end result is artifact's appearing in video output during playback ... not nice , and I wouldn't watch crap done this way .

==============

I had been looking for a new lcd tv recently and I was not happy with such artifact's appearing ... only one set had the correct colour correction , and showed less problem's with artifact's during area's of motion in the background (non-focal point's) ... cost me over $2k .

They tried flogging an 6 foot plasma monster onto me for $6.5k ... But if I and one friend cannot move it alone ... I dont want it ... beside's , if it fell over , it would most likely kill anything on its way down , and wake the dead .

As the rest has been covered , the only thing remaining is the ability to use a previous driver package ... and for pete sake ... dont use the idiot that came on the cd with the card ... there basic , and rubbish ... and the xp os default's dont deliver any better ... there basic only .

Stupid nvidia supplied a developer's package for sli with my new geforce 6600 le , 256mb unit ... stupid box popup kept saying "no secondary vga device installed ... disabling feature" ... nvidia forum suggested another sli driver , it cured the popup but still with repeated bsod's ... then I decided to download the forceware package ... and no more bsod's , no more flamin system crash's since ... idiot's .

There is no such things as "crossover cables are notoriously finicky" ... they either work , or dont ... just be carefull of the pin's , not all are soldered well and may come loose .

Some people are happy with "clone mode" ... and other's are not ... unless you have a modern lcd screen or better supporting higher screen resolution's than normal tv's ... it is still sub standard .

Those who cannot tell the difference ... need to go get glass's or help .

i downloaded the latest driver and things are better now...

but the video on the VGA is still noticably better than on my TV....

Thats the way it is ... if it's reasonably close , and enjoyable ... that should be acceptable until they improve the technology .

There may be some tweaking from you vga's control applet that might improve the colour / gamma / brightness / alignment ... but thats about the limit ... what would give some improvement would be to send via svideo rather than rca ... some say it's to do with loss of luminosity channel .

the S-Video-to-RCA cable is not the problem. I used this same cable on my Philips stand-alone DVD player, and the picture is perfect.

i think it may be the codec i am using to play the mpeg4 files.... i assume ffdshow is the best but i couldn't get ffdshow to work on my Media Player Classic... (i did for one time get it to work, but couldn't now duplicate the result.) But I use the DivX codec, the pic is not so good... i don't know why...

plus, i don't know what parameter ffdshow i need to adjust for the best quality...

thanks...

Why confuse all the issues. Load a DVD to test the video system and S-Video connection. Try a progressive movie DVD and an interlace DVD. That establishes the best you will get.

After that, try various software players and codecs for your MPeg4.

well, i still don't know what the problem is (if it is a problem at all).

I would give the quality of the picture with the Philips player a solid 10. It is crystal clear and very sharp. The picture with the Radeon (when playing DVD using PowerDVD) is about 8; it's slightly blur...

When mpeg4 files are played, it's a 10 for the Philips (which can play mpeg4 files0 and a 7 for the Radeon (which I use Media Player Classic to play.) I am not sure what codec my MPC is using, but I know it's not ffdshow or divx since the system tray doesn't show it. I don't know how to tell MPC to use a particular codec to play the mpeg4 files. Obviously different mpeg4 codec would produce different result, but I assume there is a best mpeg4 codec. I assume it's ffdshow (and not DivX). Am I right here?

My understanding is that DVD Mpeg2 doesn't use a codec (like DivX). So I suppose there isn't a "best" Mpeg2 codec. Is that right?

I am not trying to confuse the issue since I think all the components are interrelated: the Radeon card, the S-video-RCA cable, the codec..

I still refuse to believe that the ATi Radeon is not capable of producing the same quality as my Philips player... there must be a solution... please help...

By your experience it plays a progressive DVD as an 8 vs. 10 for the Philips standalone player. That is the most direct path and tests the S-Video out digital to analog hardware. So it can't produce the same quality.

For an interlace DVD, there should be a larger difference in quality. The Philips will play it directly. The PC path requires deinterlace by the PowerDVD player (software), then reinterlace by the 9250 (hardware).

For MPeg4, the Philips is decoding in hardware. The PC is decoding in software so is dependent on both the quality of the codec and the power of the CPU.