media pc

hittman

hittman

hittman

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Joined
17 May 2003
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1,594
Hi.

I have decided to use my silent tower as a media pc in my living room. Will be used for general web surfing and watching movies etc.

Just wondered what I need/do to make general web browsing more pleasant on the eye as the text/images is really bad. Watching movies on my tv looks fine.

My graphics card is Sapphire ATI 128mb (I know, old!).

I am using a scart connection from the pc to the tv.

thanks,
 
Need more info about what TV. Does it have a VGA/HDMI or is it an older style box?

using scart to tv is never going to look good i'm afraid. Sometimes there are options in the ATI control panel for when connecting to tv, e.g. sharpness and the like. try playing with the tv controls too to get the best balance.
 
You're probably using s-video or composite video so the signal is getting scaled down to some stupidly low resolution, sent to the TV and then scaled up again to display it. Thats why it looks rubbish.

See if you can hook it up via some other interface. Does your TV have DVI/HDMI, VGA or component inputs?
 
The front inputs are composite + L/R audio, not component. You may be able to tweak the signal a bit (see alex's post) but your main problem is the type of connection you're using.

If you're using composite (yellow RCA connector) you might notice some improvement (although not a great amount as your main problem is resolution) using s-video instead (same type as a ps/2 mouse/keyboard connector but with only 4 pins). Make sure your TV supports s-video first though, not all do.
 
The resolution the tv is running is at 1024 x 768. My tv does support S-video at the front but its running it in black and white-I think the front connections on my tv is loose/faulty.

The scart also accepts S-Video as an input but doesn't seem to be working from pc to tv.

My current connection set up is:

PC -> S-video out -> yellow RCA connector -> Scart -> TV

Sound works fine through the TV using the White/Red -> Scart -> TV

I've tried the ATI control panel but not much improvement i'm afraid.

what are my options?
 
"S-video out -> yellow RCA connector" is an s-video to composite adapter. If you're running through that and your TV thinks it's getting s-video it'll end up in black and white.

You'll get black and white if you tell the graphics card to output s-video and you have the TV connected via composite too.

edit: Your options are 1) live with it 2) buy a new tv :(

edit edit: the connection you're using scales the image to 640x480 before sending it to the TV
 
hittman said:
The resolution the tv is running is at 1024 x 768...
Click to expand...

This is the issue I believe, SVideo transmits at best 720x576(feel free to confirm/correct me on this)

So for starters your PC res of 1024x768 is getting scaled down...

Can you lower the pc res to better match svideo, and then play about with font size etc?
 
You aren't really gonna get a satisfactory web browsing experience on your TV unless you can use VGA or HDMI. S-video will give a much better picture than composite, but it's not going to magically make text readable.

Even if you feed 1024x768 into your TV, you won't see anymore detail than feeding 640x480.

Your best best would be to increase the size of your text in your browser. (Opera -> fit to width, Zoom 200% for a start) problem is - try browsing at 640x480 - it totally sucks. Try browsing at 640x480 with massive text - that sucks harder.

Even if you have an 'optimsed for TV' webbrowser - e.g. the Dreamcast one, or the Wii one, you still can't read anything.

S-video will give much better picture for movie viewing however, and 350 meg divx files should look almost like broadcast quality on these sorts of screens.

BTW, I'm presuming, the TV is CRT?, this is my experience. However I don't expect to see much improvement if it's LCD. You'll probably just get a sharper picture that you still can't read.

edits- for speeling
 
Last edited:
Windows Media Centre looks pretty good on my TV (CRT) but would be great if you could do everything in the comfort of your sofa without buying a new tv. :(

Could I buy a VGA/DVI to Scart adapter?

Cheers for the great advice guys. I will have a play with the settings and do abit more research on the weekend.
 
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