pc to tv output question

telemachus

This is probably a fairly straightforward question but i'm a bit lost beyond svideo or composite. I've had my pc hooked up to a fairly ancient tv via svideo for a few years now and recently bought a new hdtv ready 32" samsung with an hdmi connector (along with various other mysterious other looking connectors ), is it worth my while adapting the output of my video card (ati aiw 9700) to use this socket and what's the best way to go about this?

Krusty_Clown

Does the AIW not have DVI out? I had one before for a short while, and I thought it did.. If so, (and the TV doesn't have a DVI connecter) a DVI -> HDMI connector is cheap..

You won't believe the difference..

8T8

I have a Samsung HDTV they come with VGA or DVI alongside HDMI.

Yes it would be a major improvement over s-video or composite.

The TV should have a VGA port same as any other computer monitor, when plugged in the TV will act as a monitor e.g. when you turn off the computer the TV will go into standby & certain TV image controls are disabled and handed over to the graphics card in the PC.

Another advantage of plugging it into the VGA or DVI port is that those ports are programmed with the resolutions of the display so you can use it just like a normal computer monitor & not have to mess with custom resolutions.

If the HDTV does not have VGA but DVI instead you need a VGA-DVI converter one like this.

Thats all there is to it.

SouperComputer

as others have said, the difference is phenominal. Also, try to set your graphics card to the native resolution of the TV for best quality. The correct res for your tv can be found online or in your manual

telemachus

Thanks everyone for the replies, much apreciated, and on their basis I grabbed a dvi to hdmi cable which is working great for video playback, you were 100 percent right about the benefit! (although the poor standard xvid/divx rips really begint to show their flaws at the higher resolution ). i went with the hdmi because i'm pretty certain my tv doesn't have the vga or dvi connector, just component, svideo and scart.

Just a very minor niggle as it doesn't affect video playback which is it's only use but at the 1280x720 or 1920x1080 ratio a small slice of the top and bottom of the desktop seem to get eaten, the ati drivers picked up the tv and the resolutions match those in the manual so i'm not entirely sure of the cause.

SouperComputer

8T8's post here may help improve the quality of your compressed video at higher res's by using free software called ffdshow.

8T8

What you are describing is called overscan somewhere in the drivers of the ATI control panel you will find a feature to counter this though they are not always 100% effective.

An old{ish} article on Anandtech explains this issue.