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Using Your TV as a Monitor?
bpm140 asks: "I'm interested in turning my spare PC into an MP3 server, but unless I can hook it up to my home theater system, it's not really worth the effort. My biggest requirement is that I can view the desktop on my TV. Right now I'm limited to S-video, but in the future I plan on upgrading to HDTV. What are my options for getting legible text on my current TV? Any specific video card I should look at?" Are there any HDTV units in the pipe that may make this easier than it is now with current TVs? I've seen televisions with VGA inputs, before, but for the life of me, I can't remember who makes them.
We've got a Mitsubishi HDTV that's of ungodly size. It has a VGA-in in the back - of course, there's a cable running out so we can use it :) Unfortunately, it's limited to 640x480 - and only 640x480 - and it's not a good idea to leave it on with the same screen over and over because eventually it will burn into the screen, and you don't want a root prompt while watching your high def.
Although I haven't tried using it for anything more than that geeky gratification of knowing that my toy is pretty damn cool, it should work well.
You could try building your own, there is a good page on it here.
Of course this can be done.
.25 dot pitch GUI screens?
The Atrai used a TV for its monitor.
Do you understand the difference between 40x25 16-color text and 1280x1024
Hey Taco! Looks like you're using the "infinite monkeys and typewriters" scheme to generate Ask Slashdots again...
I've got an nVidia GeForce 2 MX card with S-Video and composite out. There are no special drivers required, or special setup. At powerup, the card detects where the video cable is plugged in, and uses that output. The upshot of this is that the video bios string shows up on my TV when I start up the machine.
I think that for HDTV, your best bet might be to find a display with VGA input. As for that, Princeton makes a line of fairly pricey displays that look just like TV's, but with every imaginable connection available. I don't know if they've broken into the HDTV market yet.
--Matthew
ATI fairly recently came out with an adapter to let their Radeon 8500 cards output to HDTV. Anandtech has a brief review of it.
Get yourself a converter to turn your VGA signal into a Component signal. Component video is a common method of analog interconnection between DVD players and other high resolution devices to HDTVs that utilizes three separate coax cables (usually with RCA connectors at each end).
I can't seem to find any right now, but I know I've seen them before on pricewatch. Make sure your video card can output a mode compatible with HDTV (the converters I saw usually did 1024x768).
A converter like this will allow you to run at significantly higher resolutions than your average S-Video cable can seem to provide.
--MonMotha
for a while now. I have an ATI All-in-Wonder 128; and I don't notice any difference between S-video and regular RCA video. I'm using RCA right now and the text is readable (although somewhat annoying) at 640x480 resolution. Hope that helps.
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
I've read a recent review of this model in Empire Magazine (UK) and it sounds like a dream.
Check out some of the features:
- concealed manual controls
- rear SCART socket, S-Video input and XGA (1024 by 768) PC input, stereo audio in and PC audio in, side headphones socket
- resizable picture-in-picture capability (watch TV while working on your PC without the need for a TV tuner card)
- 2 x 2.5W Nicam stereo integral speakers
The Philips got a five (out of five) star review, with the reviewer particularly impressed by the picture and sound quality, and cost £689 including taxes (which should equate to about roughly $879 before taxes in the US).Also reviewed were the similar Bush LC-15 (£700, 2/5 stars) and the LG RE-15LA30 (£700, 4/5 stars).
Hope that helps.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
so I pent less then £300 on a 28" widescreen. not great, but cheap. you look at £700 on a 15"? Whats the world coming too :roll eyes:
Unless you have something like an HDTV already, you just won't get a decent picture.. And how much text do you need to display for a music station anyway? Set up your computer so that the fonts are easily readable on the TV instead of trying to make the pc picture look good on the TV... Any old TV card should do for that purpose.
I wouldn't recommend playing PC games on a TV though (which might be tempting if you already have the PC hooked up) unless you have a much better TV card than me.
so I pent less then £300 on a 28" widescreen. not great, but cheap. you look at £700 on a 15"? Whats the world coming too :roll eyes:
Follow the link. It's a 15in. TFT flat panel, not a CRT. You get what you pay for.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
True, however £400 for a tft half the size of a crt?
A 15" TFT monitor costs about £150, add a £100 digital tuner.
You've been misled. 800x600 is the highest native resolution the Gateway Destination (31") supports - and some only supported 640x480. However, it's possible to scale down higher resolution images to display them, but obviously you're going to lose an enormous amount of detail scaling down from 1600x1200, which is quadruple the resolution.
The reason the Destination sucks is the low native resolution combined with the large physical size of the screen, making for relatively few, large pixels which need to be viewed from some distance.
If the screen truly had a 1600x1200 resolution and a 31" size, it would be quite usable. However, it still wouldn't be nearly as good as a smaller 1600x1200 monitor viewed from a closer distance.
A 15" TFT monitor costs about £150, add a £100 digital tuner.
A poor quality 15in. TFT screen might cost you £150 (even then I doubt it, want to provide an example? I couldn't find any.*) but this screen was particularly lauded for it's picture (and sound) quality. Now I wouldn't argue for a second that the reviewer at Empire is the foremost authority on TFT displays but, if he's reviewing a TV/PC monitor, it's fair to assume that he knows the difference between a bad picture and a good one. Which, I guess, is the most important thing to consider when talking about something that you're going to stare at for long periods of time.
This TFT includes a top-notch (again, according to the reviewer) speaker system, custom picture-in-picture software, other inputs, etc. And, something that you're perhaps overlooking, it's a stand-alone device that will work with any PC - the oldest, least impressive desktop or laptop will do. So, we're a far way away from a basic, no-name flat panel.
Of course the price is at a premium right now. These kind of devices offering simple, elegant TV/PC interaction aren't mass market solutions at the moment - when they are their prices will reflect that.
Early adopters/people who can't wait to have the latest thing accept that their paying a price premium now to have something that will be cheaper. It's not for everyone and, obviously, it's not for you. However, it might be just the right thing for others.
Just because you wouldn't buy it that doesn't make it any less valid a solution.
(* I looked for at TFTs priced between £100 and £300 at www.dabs.com, probably the UK's biggest PC retailer. The cheapest 15in. flat panel that they had available was at £265 excluding VAT, £311 including. Coincidentally, this was a Philips 150S, the display that their TV/PC display is based on. The price excluding VAT of the 150MT is £586, a difference of £321 - a lot less than you're suggesting. Even then, we're comparing the a cheap street price of one monitor to the manufacturer's quoted price of another. If you want to make comparisons, by all means do so, but please make sure that you're comparisons are real and valid and that you're not comparing apples to oranges.)
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
The Matrox G550 can be had for around $100. It has two configurable outputs, so you can connect a TV and a VGA (or DVI) device at the same time. You can use the displays independently, or have them show the same output. Also, the DVD playback on the G550 (and the 400/450) is quite good. The colors are well saturated and there are no dropped frames on my PII-350.
(It plugs into any vga monitor port and converts to a video signal.)
Now of course this is not a good solution for someone looking to do actual work on a TV, but for people considering getting a video card with TV out for watching movies and playing games, (which is why I am reading this article,) it has some definite advantages:
- Works with the video card you now own.
- You can swap it easily to your laptop.
- Linux *will* work with no configuration issues.
- Works with DOS or non-X modes.
- Fine for presentations such as powerpoint. (the original purpose of these devices, IIRC.)
- No drivers to ever install.
- Pal or NTSC
- Does not support Macrovision - make VCR copies of DVDs that you own. (Keep the kids from scratching up DVDs that they watch.)
- Will not be obsolete when your video card is.
For movies and games, it worked.remarkably well - better, in fact than the TV -out on my Guillemot card which only works in Windows. (Plus, my card supports Macrovision, which means that I cannot 'back up' my DVDs to tape.)
This would be perfect for someone wanting to convert an old box into a low-cost networked video player and MP3 player - Winamp in 'double-size' mode would be perfectly usable on any decent TV.
Someone had suggested one of these to me a while back and I thought it a stupid idea - I assumed that integrated video-out on an expensive card *must* be better.
I was wrong.
Hope this is useful to someone...
Cheers,
Jim in Tokyo
-- My Weblog.