Low quality TV out

I'm trying to make an entertainment center PC so that I can browse the web when I'm in the LR sitting on the couch. Right now it's a PII 450 with 256 Mb of SDRAM and a Abbit Silluro MX440 based video card. I'm using a regular TV as a monitor via the TV out function of the video card, and I can connect either via Svideo or regular RCA connection. The problem is that the image quality is, basically, horrible. It's a bit better with Svideo, but not goo enough. A monitor connected to the same video card has excelent quality. Is this just a limitation of the Nvidia TV out? Right now it's usable ( I have a 27" TV), but you can see the image "go up", similar to what you see when you videotape a TV, and the screen looks like it has "lines" on it.
Is there a way to convert the output from the VGA connector to a Svideo or RCA output? Will the quality be better?

It's not the output. TVs have lousy resolution. The only way to really improve it is to buy a digital TV set.

Tv out is always going to be garbage it becomes acceptable when viewing video such as dvd but regular desktop is absolutely awful, you have to dump it down to 640x480 to get even close enough to read text...with hdtv it is becoming better but for a plainjane tv try no to expect to much, and svido will give you the best quailty there.....

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Originally posted by trinitro
... but you can see the image "go up", similar to what you see when you videotape a TV, and the screen looks like it has "lines" on it.
Is there a way to convert the output from the VGA connector to a Svideo or RCA output? Will the quality be better?

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If you see that rolling effect you have a problem - vertical sync signal is not being detected (maybe it is too low or not present for some reason). You can not convert the signal from the VGA output to a TV-compatible format directly due to difference in number of lines (480 non-interlaced if you go 640x480 for the computer versus 525 interlaced for standard NTSC TV). I know there are some adapters that can make a good conversion but they are expensive. Do you like browsing the web in 640x480 that much???

hey trinitro, I've got some experience in doing what you're trying to do.

First, there are a few programs out there that can unlock the tv out on that card and give you a lot more options than the standard drivers can. here's a link to a few good tools. check them out (WARINING : any changes you do are at your own risk!)

http://www.digital-digest.com/dvd/nvidia/tvout.html

Secondly, if this pc will only be used for entertainement centre purposes (ie: it will stand next to your tv and be used only for that) I would suggest either MYTHTV or FREEVO. They're linux based and basically turn your pc into a PVR on crack. I can watch dvd's, Mpegs, avi's, listen to mp3's. wma's, play MAME and other emulators, Watch tv, record tv, pause live tv, look at my digital pictures etc......
The only problem is that being they are linux based, you have to have at least some knowledge on how to mess around with a linux system. here are the links :

http://www.mythtv.org/

http://freevo.sourceforge.net/

add an IR receiver and you can control everything from any universal remote.

Hope this helps!

I will try the programs mentioned. Right now its running XP (MC), but I was thinking of installing Linux on it. This is only a 450 Mhz PII machine, and XP is a bit too much for it. :)
The image is not rolling, it's just that if you look at the screen (especially on a darker background) you can see a "rolling screen". It's very similar to what you experience when you view a monitor or TV through a video camera.
640X480 might be a bit too large to browse the web. :)
The system will basically be used to play music stored on my main machine (in the office), and the browse the web.
The other difficulty I'm having is finding a wireless keyboard with an integrated mouse/pointing device which will work more then 6 ft away. Everywhere I look they are all 6'. My couch is 10' away.

My standard logitech wireless desktop works at least 20 feet from my computer.. but of course by that time I can't read the screen so I don't bother trying to go further.... :p

noonoo's pretty much hit the nail on the head there with her post. the reason most of them don't go any farther than 6' is because you can't read the text any farther than that.

As for the rolling, you mean the refresh rate. Play around with the refresh rates in the nvidia drivers until the screen stops 'rolling'. I gotta say from experience, surfing the web on a tv is not to great unless you have a huge TV. stick with the pc for that. Use the entertainement system for music, and video playback. BTW i'v run xp on less than a p2 450 and you can get it to run fine. Tweak the services to only use the ones you need and get rid of all the themes and junk you don't need, add some serious ram (512+) and it should run fine. Granted you probably couldnt run more than 2 or 3 programs with it but it should be able to handle playing music.

noonoo's pretty much hit the nail on the head there with her post. the reason most of them don't go any farther than 6' is because you can't read the text any farther than that.

As for the rolling, you mean the refresh rate. Play around with the refresh rates in the nvidia drivers until the screen stops 'rolling'. I gotta say from experience, surfing the web on a tv is not to great unless you have a huge TV. stick with the pc for that. Use the entertainement system for music, and video playback. BTW i'v run xp on less than a p2 450 and you can get it to run fine. Tweak the services to only use the ones you need and get rid of all the themes and junk you don't need, add some serious ram (512+) and it should run fine. Granted you probably couldnt run more than 2 or 3 programs with it but it should be able to handle playing music.

I'll try a 'regular" black keyboard/mouse combo (radio of course, not IR) and see if it will work. I could of course use a 20' USB extension cord and put the receiver a few feet from the couch, but that would be cheating. :)
The Nvidia driver won't let me change the refresh rate for the TV. If I change that to a regular "monitor" I could change it, but the image would actually be worse.
I did notice however that the image in XP MC is better then in XP Pro. Same Nvidia driver.

did you try setting the desktop to 640x480? higher resolutions look terrible on tv screens.

those rolling lines sound like the refresh rate is to high. try setting to 60Hz at a screen resolution of 640x480. that might make things a little better.

SH