Output to TV optimization

[Capt Fiero]

What are the best reolutions to get the cleanest output to TV. Any tips tricks or settings to get text clearer when I am viewing my Desktop on the TV.

We recently got a kick A$$ setup going. One of our computers sits pretty close to the TV in our bedroom, so I just strung an S-Video cable from the Ti4200 card over to the TV. That computer just happens to have a wireless keyboard and mouse. So now we can sit in bed and watch stuff downloaded to the computer or surf the web on our 27" TV. Shows and Movies come out perfect. You cant even tell it is comming from the computer. But when I click over to the desktop it is pretty fuzzy for text and stuff. Pics come up clean but small text is almost unreadable.

The other cool thing about this is that because we have 5 computers all networked together in the house we can stream movies stored on any of the other computers as well. It is kinda ncie having access to 300gig of files while laying in bed.


Oh P.S. Lisa gets a kick out of playing UT2K3 now on the TV as well.

But back to the topic at hand.

How to tweak things to clear up the text on desktop or any other settings that will make it better.

 

[DaddyB]

TVs do not display text well at all since the text is meant to be read on a much higher resolution monitor. One thing you can do is lower the resolution to 800x600 or lower and the other is to increase the font size - Just right clcik on the desktop, select properties and click on the appearence tab. There you will see a setting for font size - try large or extra large (thats for windows XP BTW, but other versions should be similar).

Another quick way to change the font size is to hold down Ctrl on the keyboard and roll the wheel on your mouse up or down but that doesnt effect all fonts.

 

[JigPu]

TVs just can't handle super fine detail (such as fonts require). They're great for stuff that's large, but anything small will get fuzy. Just look at how big text is on television shows compared to your moniotor

UT2K3 is awesome on TV Wish my comp was closer to one
JigPu

 

[Yuriman]

TV's have scanlines, so even at 800x600 its only displaying 400/300 pixels. And thats about as high as tv's go. Even on my high def. tv its still fuzzy simply because the pixels are shaped differently.

 

[Albuquerque]

The native operating resolution for SVIDEO is very similar to the European PAL format; a resolution of 512x384 is almost exactly at the native format. That usually isn't an option on your desktop, but most games will allow it.

What you CAN do is exactly double that feature size to 1024x768, which will give you a 1/4 downscale when converted to your TV. Depending on the quality of your TV output chip, this can give you a form of "free" antialiasing when running that resolution on your TV.

Unfortunately, most TV converter chips are pretty cheap, so that isn't always the case.

My general suggestion would be to run either 512x384 or else 640x480 while also using at least 2xAA. AF isn't really necessary because of the lack of detail and low resolution of a TV screen, but AA is VERY necessary for an unpixelated image.

I usually run my 9800 at 6xAA at 640x480 for the best results while playing on my TV (35 inch Phillips/Mag via the SVIDEO jack).

 

[Capt Fiero]

This is so cool. I am laying in bed just finished watching Hackers and when the movie was done I reached over grabbed the mouse and opened up OC.com

Thanks for all the tups guys. I cranked the font size up a bit but I guess you are right text just does not go well on a TV. Oh well it is still great to watch movies and play games on.

I have been running 800x600 and I tried 640x480 but the option in settings from desktop wont let me. It will go 800x600 or 1024x768 and nothing in between nothing lower either. Oh well.

I am letting her use my Altec Lansing speakers and sub for right now, becuase wathing movies using her cheepo speakers really sucked. I think the Altec stuff actully sounds better than the speakers built into the TV. (I guess that is kinda duh thing though)

I guess building her a fast machine with a decent video card was not such a bad idea afterall. HeHe.

Thanks again for the tips. Now all I got to do is find a way to extend the range of the wireless stuff so I dont miss 1 in 10 key strokes. Shouldn't this stuff be good for at least 15fett. It is a wirless desktop set from Microsoft. Before anyone asks the battires are fairly new about a month or so I think. She usually gets 3 months from the keyboard and 2 months from the mouse battires even with 2hrs of UT every day.