what do i need?

L

littlesaj

Geek Trainee
i want to connect my computer to my television so i can watch movies from my computer on my television, i have heard i need a video card but would that not be built in on the motherboard? where can i get one and how would i know if it was compatible with my machine?
 
Motherboards that have onboard video won't have the s-video port that graphics cards have. If you're not going to be gaming then you can get a cheap card that has s-video or composite port.
 
All you need is a card with a video output (any video card basically), and the cable (which comes with the card).

Then in Windows, right click on the desktop, go to the "settings" tab, click on the screen with the number 2 on it, and check the first box but not the second one, all should be working fine.

When you boot your computer, you should actually see the POST screen on your TV.
 
Most motherboards do not have TV-out. A very small handful do, but these tend to be based on the nForce 2 IGP or a Radeon 9100 IGP chipset. There are VGA ->S-video converters, but for the price you can get a cheap video card with TV-out and still save money. Besides Matrox, you're best bet would be an nVidia-based card, like a GeForce 2/4 MX one. ATi will work, but they don't have as flexible drivers in this regard.
 
I have hooked up my card (9500pro) with my TV with a S-video-composite adapter (my TV doesn't have S-video), but interms of movies, i can only watch DVD's and not any other format like avi, mpg, mpeg etc,. All that comes is a black screen on the T.V while on the Monitor the movie is working perfectly.
 
Did you fiddle around with the S-Video output on your card's display properties? I remember when I had a geforce fx5200 that it was a pain in the a__ to set up S-Video out
 
Nope,...
Just went to Display properties> Settings> Advanced> Displays> (clicked on the T.V Icon.
 
Most TV's only support up to 800x600 in resolution, and you've got yours set at 1024x768...that could be the problem with the setup.
 
I don't think the resolution can create that kind of a problem.

What will happen if your resolution is too high is the image will be blury on the screen. The more you lower it, the clearer it will become.
 
Correction: The adapter is not S-Video-Composite but S-Video to RCA.
Could there be somthing wrong with the television, not supporting those formats or something, because when playing them I can see the entire desktop but not the image IN the Media player.
 
Not sure. I haven't really messed with hooking up TV's to computers, so I can't say for sure. It might be, but I'm not totally sure.

Is it just media files (.avi, .mpeg, etc.) or does it apply to DVD's as well (if you have a DVD drive on the system and software installed)?
 
Mack said:
Correction: The adapter is not S-Video-Composite but S-Video to RCA.
Could there be somthing wrong with the television, not supporting those formats or something, because when playing them I can see the entire desktop but not the image IN the Media player.
Click to expand...

I had this problem, had to set a lower refresh rate! I think 60 hertz
 
Yeah, that's one thing I forgot. IIRC most TV's don't do all that high of refresh rates, which is fine for the resolutions they run.
 
Yeah,... But how can the DVD's Run fine and not other formats,.... That's the puzzle :confused:

Sony DVD ROM
Software: Power DVD

As for the refresh rate,.... I believe I tried that too,.... because I remeber the refresh rate for my monitor would't exceed 60Hz.
 
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