Video card setup for HTPC

[bigboxes]

Hello,

I recently purchased a Radeon 9600XT video card from an AT member to complete my HTPC. I want it to display on my living room television -- a Panasonic Tau 27" CRT. It has one component input, but I am using that for my dvd/cable. I was thinking of running an s-video cable to the televison from the video card. Is there much difference in picture quality (in this application) between composite and s-video? In a test run using component input (front access of television) the text was quite blurry. Ideally, I would like an HDTV to hook this all up to, but I have what I have (for the time being). I've done the tweaking over my pc monitor via a four-port KVM switch. What is the optimal resolution for a 27" crt televison? Is there any particular settings that someone can recommend for this ATI card and anything I can do to make the text readable even if it's far from optimal. Many years ago I played around with outputting to a television with the original Radeon 64mb (Radeon 7200) and there was a setting for television (which was blurry as well). Any advice (oustide of purchasing a HDTV) would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Luminair]

Flicker filter makes edges flicker less, but it does this by decreasing sharpness. So if you're looking at a lot of text, you want more flicker filter... but if you're looking at pictures of people, you want less.

Your CRT TV can't even really do 640x480, so that or 800x600 will be more than sufficient.

DVI >>> Svideo > composite

 

[Auric]

The difference in image quailty from composite to S-Video is significant and then again to component. However, text will never be useable due to the low resolution. I would use the TV's front component input despite how bad the cables themselves would look -perhaps using angled connectors and even covering them as they are routed underneath or around the side.

It is best to set the output to 640x480 to match the TV directly and thus avoid unnecessary encoder processing.

AFAIK, ATI's drivers (and Nvidia's, oddly enough) are still defective when it comes to Theater Mode (or Full Screen Video) which results in a distorted aspect ratio. So, it is necessary to use older drivers or else not use that feature and instead drag video over to the secondary display (set up independent of the primary).

 

[bigboxes]

Appreciate your guys replies. Anyone have a chart or could list the resolution for the differing size CRTs? Are they all 640x480 no matter how large the screen size?

 

[bigsnyder]

Some CRTs can accept 800x600 and 1024x768 across the S-Video, mine will anyway.
Text will not be any better, but changing the text size to extra large will help.

 

[Auric]

4:3 SDTV's are all 640x480 regardless of size. 480i is the limit of S-Video anyway. Component can manage up to 1080p.

The driver output may be set for up to 1024x768 but the purpose is to minimize the difference when cloned and thus scrolling around to see the whole image on the TV. But as said it should be avoided for best quality.

Also, the main reason to even use clone in such a situation is for the convenience of Theater Mode to play video on the TV while in a Window on the PC without having some shared edge... but of course that is broken.

A direct 640x480 also minimizes the size of the path between the two displays and under Properties - Settings, the secondary (TV) can be dragged to the preferred location relative to the primary (PC). This minimizes the annoyance of a shared edge (the default right side is particularly annoying as it interferes with basic Window scrolling).

A player window can be left on the TV if desired and video files sent to or dragged over. The selected renderer will partly determine whether the video can be displayed on the secondary so using a good player like MPC is recommended.

 

[Peter]

Originally posted by: bigsnyder
Some CRTs can accept 800x600 and 1024x768 across the S-Video, mine will anyway.
Text will not be any better, but changing the text size to extra large will help.

You should realize that the PHYSICAL resolution going out the S-Video cable is always 480 lines interlaced for NTSC, no matter what RENDERED resolution the graphics engine feeds into the TV-out circuitry. The scaling happens inside the graphics chip.

And that's the heart of the matter, actually. If you're in NTSC land, then the ideal resolution for S-Video is 640x480. PAL countries should use 576 lines and 720 (for DVD) or 768 pixels horizontal - usually, going with 800x600 and overscan (cutting the extra lines back off) is good enough.