Terrible image on TV

sniperpenguin · 7 Feb 2006 at 10:19

OK, Im new to hooking PC's up to TV's, so be gentle

I have a shuttle SN45Gv2 running a basic Sapphire 9200SE and XP Pro going into a Samsung 32" TV (Flatscreen, but still CRT) via S-Video to composite (decent cable). The image is blurry as hell.

Not sure what the problem is

1. Rubbish card?
2. Not running Windows MCE? (Yes, I know its basicaly XP Pro with a pretty interface + codecs)
3. Drivers? (was only running XP's radeon drivers at the time) - I was halfway through installing the catalyst drivers when the shuttle went loopy and started rebooting randomly!
4. Plain old resolution?

I'm humble enough to admit I've no idea with media machines

FrankJH · 7 Feb 2006 at 10:45

If you tell us the model number of the TV this might help - but you are never going to get a very dcent picture on aTV as normal non hidef screens are usually only 640*480 ( I believe there are some newer crt's that have managed 800*600 somehow, but I could be wrong)
I admit this might not be the cause of the "blurryness"

I would unstall the CATS and re install personally, and let us know what version yur using also

james.miller · 7 Feb 2006 at 10:49

same question get's asked every wee.....scratch that. every day. Tv's be definition do not have the resolution needed to display a desktop clearly. imagine running a low res on a TFT - its blurry.

running a hi-res desktop on a tv does the same thing in reverse. Instead of scaling the image and blowing it up for a TFT, its scaled down on a tv. Oposite ways of doing things but the end result is the same - a blurry image.

It has its advantages - dvd's look great. as do games - its basically free FSAA. For everything else - dont bother. Or buy a hidef 32".

Spyhop · 7 Feb 2006 at 11:31

Aye, the resolution is just too low. Even if the TV had the resolution, composite video is always going to be terrible quality.

If you find a bag of money then you'd do well to upgrade to a Samsung LE R41/R51 LCD HTDV. They take VGA in and, at the 1360x768 native resolution, look pin sharp and gorgeous - better than my LG TFT via DVI!

Vegeta · 7 Feb 2006 at 11:36

Yeah am I right in thinking S-Video and Composite will always look rubbish? I conncted my Xbox to my dell 2005fpw via the S-Video (yellow thing) and it looked terrible even at native res at 1:1.

Spyhop · 7 Feb 2006 at 11:48

Pretty much.. they're both limited to low resolution only and composite especially is prone to colour bleeding and general fuzzyness.

Phil99 · 7 Feb 2006 at 12:55

http://www.idiots.org.uk/vga_rgb_scart/

^ That will get you a better picture, but it looks like a fair bit of hassle.

sniperpenguin · 7 Feb 2006 at 15:29

Well Im using the latest Cat's of the ATi site. i'll:

1. Whack it down to 800x600
2. rip out and re-install the cats (getting the video.ini error at the moment when I try to install)

Just wondering... if TV's always have a terrible display, why does MCE appear to look OK on a non-HDTV?

Phil99 · 7 Feb 2006 at 15:39

It's designed for TV use so it has big, bold text etc whereas the Windows desktop is small text.

Using composite doesn't help matters at all.

tim_enchanter · 8 Feb 2006 at 17:32

A lot of tvs will do 1024x768, also using composite (yellow plug) is nowhere nearly as good as s-vhs.
You can also set text size to large in xp display properties.
I always found that the lack of high refresh rates bothered me more than anything else when using the tv.
Some games look great on tvs.

Dougsnake · 8 Feb 2006 at 19:09

well i use my mce on my crt JVC flat widescreen using the tvout to s-video connector and run it at 1024x768 with a x300se(dont know if its a different tv out chip) also my tv displays at 60hz which helps too i guess.
It looks ok never gonna be like a tft or crt monitor though on the desktop but i found cleartype tuner helped (i know its supposed to be for tft not crt) as did playing with the apperence of the fonts to give bolder text and increased the icon sizes to large.
without getting a tft/lcd tv thats the best your gonna get imo.

2p

chaparral · 8 Feb 2006 at 19:17

TV out is fine for playing games and watching movies on a big screen ..But forget about normal desktop use..
(LCD tv's with high res and vga/DVI inputs should be ok)

badbob · 8 Feb 2006 at 19:41

Vegeta said:
Yeah am I right in thinking S-Video and Composite will always look rubbish? I conncted my Xbox to my dell 2005fpw via the S-Video (yellow thing) and it looked terrible even at native res at 1:1.

The "yellow thing" is composite, so it'll look rubbish anyway. S-Video is a little round connector with about 5 pins.

Best quality on a TV is set to 640 x 480.

james.miller · 8 Feb 2006 at 19:42

best quality for what?

movies? 1024x768 or 640x480? i know which id rather have.

badbob · 8 Feb 2006 at 19:51

james.miller said:
best quality for what?

movies? 1024x768 or 640x480? i know which id rather have.

I take it talking of standard rez CRT TV? No point at all setting to 800x600 or higher on TV. Unless you have a hi-def set (set to native anyway)

tim_enchanter · 8 Feb 2006 at 20:12

When using my tv, I set desktop to 800x600 but any gaming or vids I run at 1024x768.
Dunno why you would want to use 640x480!!!

james.miller · 8 Feb 2006 at 20:13

badbob said:
I take it talking of standard rez CRT TV? No point at all setting to 800x600 or higher on TV. Unless you have a hi-def set (set to native anyway)

why? picture is VASTLY better with dvd's at 1024x768 when upscaled.

badbob · 8 Feb 2006 at 20:20

What TV are you using? If using a standard TV the S-Video is locked to a certain rez.
And whatever you choose the TV cannot show display hi-def, so it doesn't matter either way.

Unless you have a hi-def set.

james.miller · 8 Feb 2006 at 20:23

badbob, you just dont know what your talking about.

PAL has a maximum display of 720x576, whatever input you are using. That's not the argument here. Feeding a crt with a 1024c768 signal is fine, beucase wether the tv itself is stuck at a res (which is not 800x600 or 640x480 btw) or not, the image produced is far better.

If you had even tried this, you'd agree. So i really dont know why you are arguing this.

badbob · 8 Feb 2006 at 20:30

Sorry you don't know what you're talking about. And yes I have have sent various resolutions to a TV, and 1024 x 768 just looks terrible, 640x480 or 800x600 is ok. But 640x480 is best for text.

Unless you're sending over component or DVI to a projector you won't get any benefits when running higher res via S-Video output.