Playing DVDs onto larger screen and Thankyou

[mastermiaow]

Hallo

I nearly drove Noo Noo and confus-ed to the edge a couple of months ago with questions regarding non-working of dvd software on my IBM laptop. I thought you might like to know how problem was eventually resolved. I reformatted my C drive and when I reinstalled - bingo! - able to use Power DVD and Win DVD without a problem. The advantage of these two over DVD express is that they can play in more than one resolution: 640x480, 800x600, 1024x768.
I could not solve the problem by merely upgrading the Operating System - I had to wipe everything clean and start again. Luckily I could reinstall from the D drive and keep all documents and downloaded exes there as well.
However in my quest to use my laptop as a DVD player onto a TV screen I have found the following; the only resolution that allows the whole picture to be displayed on the TV (whether a 22" or a 14") is at 640x480 and when I play at that resolution the picture is very jagged and jumpy. If I want a smoother playback I have to increase the resolution which means the edges of the picture are cut off.
The DVDs are all in 16:9 format and I do not have a widescreen TV.
I notice that an advanced version of Windvd would enable me to choose a desired widescreen ratio between 16:9, 1:85:1 and 2.11:1 but would this make any difference on a TV which 4:3?
I only have a 366 mhz processor and am not sure if there is any way I can get smoother playback at 640x480?
Oh and a happy festive season - this is a great forum and noo and confus-ed have been a great help so thank you!

[NooNoo]

ARRRRRRRRGgggggggghhhhhhhhh

no really, we didn't go quite to the edge....

Formatting often solves wierdo problems like this, because the registry has something screwed up or a file version is not right and since most of the time you don't know what an installer does (or doesn't do) it makes it hard to track down.


640x480 is all a tv can handle. they are very very low resolution... you will notice if you try to read your desktop from a tv its next to impossible.

Remind us, what is the tv out on your lappie, svideo or rca jack? What is the input on your TV?

How much ram does the laptop have?
When you playback a DVD is everything in background shutdown, this includes printer toolboxes, office start up, findfast, modem software, etc etc

If memory serves it was 98... press ctrl alt del, and endtask everything except explorer and systray.

Use msconfig (start, run, msconfig) to prevent everything but your av, explorer and systray.

Shut down your AV when playing back a movie. Do not attempt to do anything other than play a movie... does it improve?

[mastermiaow]

Hi again - just when you thought it was safe.......

Remind us, what is the tv out on your lappie, svideo or rca jack? What is the input on your TV?

TV out on my lappie is definitely not svideo so I assume is rca jack. I bought an adapter from IBM for £50 which is plugged into the TV out socket.

How much ram does the laptop have?

160 mb. I have considered boosting the ram but was told by an IBM technician that this would not make any difference to playback???
My processor is only 366mhz and I only have a 2mb graphics card, both non upgradable - I was led to believe that these had far more influence on playback issues....

When you playback a DVD is everything in background shutdown, this includes printer toolboxes, office start up, findfast, modem software, etc etc
Use msconfig (start, run, msconfig) to prevent everything but your av, explorer and systray.

Yes i have done all of this. I know this will produce smoother playback on the LCD but it doesn't make any difference to playback through the TV...

I came across this in the reference manual and wanted to know what you think:

You can select up to 64K colors for your secondary display,
either the CRT or the television.
You can select a resolution up to 1024x768 for your secondary
display.
You cannot set the dual display if you specify the primary display
(the LCD) to a 1024x768 resolution and 16M colors for color
depth.
The followings are the settings that are not supported:

Primary (LCD) Secondary(CRT or TV)
1280x1024,256 1024x768,64K
1024x768,64K 1024x768,64K
1024x768,64K 800x600,16M

The following table shows the display mode when you use the
television:
Resolution Color Depth Display Mode for Television
640x480 256,64K The whole image is shown on the screen.
800x600 256,64K The whole image is shown on the screen.
1024x768 256,64K The image is shown as a virtual screen.
1280x1024 256 The image is shown as a virtual screen.

You cannot use 16M colors on the television. You cannot
display the output only with the television.

I understand from this that the TV does not support 16bit colour but am wondering if playback on TV would be any better if I changed colour depth on LCD to 64k. The puzzling thing is that I do not have this option on my settings - just 256/16bit/24bit. So is there any way I can get LCD to use 64k colour depth?