S-Video Poor Picture Quality and No Movie Playback

[34534534534555]

Hi all,

I have just taken delivery of a Sony Television, it has S-Video input. My PC has S-Video output. I linked them with a cheap s-video cable from PC world made by Belkin (it was originally s-video to scart, but i just don't use the scart socket)

When i get the picture on the TV, it is rubbish quality, you cannot even read the start menu items, this is from a laptop with an ATI M6 32mb card. Aditionally when i play a video in Media Player, the picture does not show on the TV.

I thought perhaps it is because of the rubbish quality cable, i am trying to get hold of a new one this week.

Any advice would be much appreciated, this is a new playground to me!

TIA. Please let us know what you think of posts, feedback is always appreciated as this will help to further our knowledge as well.
_________________________________________________
Create like a God, Command like a King, Work like a slave..

 

[NADIAZIPPER]

I had a similar issue. My laptop will not play the videos either and its not the cable. I use a $50 Monster brand and I have the same effect. As far as clarity the best thing to do is mess with the fonts in the Apperence options. I have a brand new Dell desktop with 1.8p4, 512 of Rambus and a Raden 9000 card and still the writing on the startup menu is bad. The video card even has a TV option and settings, but without the fonts being adjusted I could not see a thing.

 

[icrf]

A standard television is something like 525 horizontal lines of interlaced resolution, compared to a moniter's 1600x1200 potential pixels. It will never become as clear as the laptop's LCD or any external VGA display.

I've worked with nVidia's twinview a lot, but never with anything from ATI, so I don't know the particulars of its TV-out. In general, a TV can comfortably display 640x480, most can do 800x600, and some can even pull 1024x768. Try lower resolutions and refresh rates first to try and get a clean picture.

Are you only getting part of your desktop on the TV, and that's why you can't see the video? If so, that should be fixed by a resolution drop, or maybe if you just drag the video into the portion of the screen that makes it to the TV (and resize). ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
...but I'm just a C man trying to see the light

 

[34534534534555]

Thanks for your replys.

It is a Sony TV, 100Hz, so refresh shouldn't be a problem i don't think. The whole screen is visible, as i have turned the resolution down to 800*600 and 16bit colour. But the picture is still awful.

The entire windows desktop will display including the WMP just not the video. Sound is present. & so is the video on the computer. Please let us know what you think of posts, feedback is always appreciated as this will help to further our knowledge as well.
_________________________________________________
Create like a God, Command like a King, Work like a slave..

 

[Kocky]

Have you tried the analog connection from the video card to the television ? If this one is also rubbish the its maybe a driver problem.

 

[lichen86]

Are you using a "clone" feature to view the picture on the laptop and the TV at the same time? Most TV-outs get fussy if they aren't given 100% attention. Try making your TV the only output device. Thats the only way I can get mine to work. Cables matter, too. I recommend

http://www.svideo.com

for all your TV out needs, great prices.

 

[cdogg]

CyberWarrior,

Go ahead and lower the refresh rate to 60Hz and the resolution to 640x480 (since anything higher is way beyond your TV's capability). I'm curious as to whether it will make a difference. On an old ATI card I used to own, this had to be done. I believe on newer cards, this isn't a problem. But then again, it all depends on the brand, model, and drivers.


~cdogg

"The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources."
- A. Einstein