S-Video out to Television Resolution

[gEd]

With the setup as you have described it, it can't be that then. Just to be 1000% sure, (and you probably know better than me) the s-video connectors have pins as opposed to composite which is just a single phono (type) plug.

Do you have another svideo connector on the tv that you could try?

I'm struggling to think of what else it can be really other than a dodgy graphics card.

For what it is worth, my motherboard has an onboard geforce2mx and the s-video output from that is completely pants compared to the output from my AGP ATI 9600 pro.

[dneprrider]

Could you post a picture of what the TV screen looks like with the grainy image?

I know with my S-Video setup using the Nvidia geForce MX440, under display settings I had to select S-Video Out otherwise it was all messed up.

I also had a ground (for those in the US/Canada)/earth issue where the TV screen displayed slight wavey lines in a moire pattern across the screen. I solved that by using a common ground/earth among all the AV/TV & computer components.

Hope you get it solved.

Hello,

I've got my box up and running, and the actual Tuner playback looks awesome on my Television. I have an evga 5200 with 256mb or ram, and the video playback looks great, but the desktop and main gbpvr screen is all grainey, etc... I tried fooling around with the resolution, which I had set to 800x600 and also tried changing the antilaising settings, etc.. but it still looked like crap. Any help would be greatly appreciated to get my desktop display to look better on my Television.

Also, my Television is a Sony Wega 36" KV-36xbr

Thanks, Joe

[Jovid]

I'm 1000% sure it's s-video. I have a pretty nice home entertainment system and definitely know my plugs. It's similiar to a PS2 plug, if that's what you mean with the pins. I'm going to look at the settings in the Nvidia control panel, as I know I didn't see a place to select S-Video out. Also, so you guys know....the actual tv signal through the pc, plays crystal clear. It's a very good picture, it's just the computer desktop/gbpvr menu that appears all blurry, etc... I have it sitting in my livingroom at the moment without it connected to my network. So I'll try to get a few screenshots up as soon as I get it back on my network.

Thanks again for you input. I bet you, I need to find that setting for s-video out. What resolution are you using dneprrider?

[wannabepvr]

Monitors and TVs are very different beasts.

I use an Gigabyte FX5200 (128Mb) through RCA (not composite) at 800x600 60Hz into my PAL 68cm TV. I believe NTSC 'resolution' is worse than PAL.

I much preferred windows (looked crisper) running 600x480 but I coun'dt see all the GBPVR config menu!

Anyway at 800x600 Windows looks pretty ordinary - icons a little fuzzy etc. but Overlay mode Video playback looks awsome. Even at standard definition digital I can't distunguish playback from DVD in terms of quality.

I suggest you start at the lowest resolution / refresh rate you can select (I think you need to select custom modes or something like that)

[Jovid]

I think I got it now. It still is a bit fuzzy, but it definitely is much better. It was the Nvidia settings. I fooled around with them and ended up setting it to 720x480, 60mhz and then made sure it was on S-Video out. It is much better.

Now I need to screw around with the channel changing setup. It only detects the one channel that the digital stb is on, so I am assuming I need to configure the IR blaster to change the channel on the STB.

One thing I'm curious about though, is why we can't get the PC's desktop to look as crisp as the stb feed? I was watching the Fockers as I was setting it up and the picture looks awesome. I wish the desktop/menu looked that crisp. They should make a video card that would output the image in the same format as what a TV normally displays in. I'm sure this can be done.... look at Tivo they do it. Their menu is nice and crisp. So I guess it is just getting the right components or having the absolute correct settings.

Thanks for all of your input, it seems to have worked.

[sub]

One thing I'm curious about though, is why we can't get the PC's desktop to look as crisp as the stb feed? I was watching the Fockers as I was setting it up and the picture looks awesome. I wish the desktop/menu looked that crisp. They should make a video card that would output the image in the same format as what a TV normally displays in.

Really depends on your TV and video card, but good options already exist. I personally connect my video card to my TV using DVI, and it looks as good as a monitor, but I know thats not an option on all TVs. The desktop and menus are very crisp and I'm really happy with the playback of video.

[Jovid]

Unfortunately my wega doesn't have DVI. I was going to look for a video card with component out, which would be better than S-Video, but I'm not sure they exist.

What my question is... how does the image from the STB through the PC appear nice an crisp, and the menu/desktop looks so blurry, etc... They both pass through my s-video out on the same video card, so you would think that they both could look that good.

I understand the signal from the STB is processed by the Tuner card and the Video from the PC is processed by the S-Video out card, but why couldn't the signal from the PC be processed by the Tuner card or made into the same formatting as the signal from the STB/Tuner card?

[gEd]

Still no answer for you but here's my $0.02 worth..

The absolute fidelity of a TV image is much harder to discern than that of the windows desktop as you are not dealing with static images/icons & text. The resolution of a tv is rubbish comapred to that of a pc monitor.

The pc signal is generated by the graphics card and cannot be processed by the tv card. This is how it should be. The graphics card is capable of producing far higher fidelity than the tv card. Your 5200 is probably capable of generating images of 1600x1200 (ish) resolution, way beyond what a tv card can capture.

As mentioned previously, a screenshot would be good, ideally from a decent digicam to enable others to see the exact problem. I suspect an alt-print screen screen capture may not show the problem.

you could try and pick up and ATI 9600/9700/9800 off fleebay, they have great image quality.

[Jovid]

Thanks gEd. I think you are missing what I'm getting at. I understand the video card is capable of much higher resolution than my TV can handle, what I don't understand is why the image created on my TV through the Tuner card is awesome! yet the same cable/same card is passing desktop images from the PC and it cannot look the same as the Tuner card signal? That's what I cannot understand.

I did get it to display probably as good as it can get, but it's not no where as nice as the STB signal that is passing through the same PC. That's what I cannot understand.

As for posting the screenshot....I will as soon as I can. I don't think we will get it any better than it is, which now after fooling with the settings, etc.. it is pretty decent compared to what it was.