Tuesday, February 22, 2005
WINDOWS :: Connecting Your TV to a 2000/XP Computer
One of the neatest things you can do with today's computers is to connect them to a nearby television set. This is the basis behind Microsoft's Windows XP Media Center Edition. They have created an application that, when installed on a PC with the proper hardware, will display an interface that brings all of your media (photos, videos, music etc) together under one access point, and looks equally nice when displayed on a standard monitor, LCD/plasma television, projector or regular old TV set.
For Media Center Edition, there are some standards you must adhere to in order for the program to work, such as specific TV and radio tuner cards, among other things, but there are other programs out there that will do the same job as Media Center, without the price tag or the hardware limitations. Media Portal is one such program. Although a little configuration is needed for this program to work with your hardware, it's a very flexible program, and best of all, it's free!
This article won't cover installation of those programs, but today, I will show you how to get your TV working with your computer, as well as give some tips on the hardware that will let you get away with it in the first place.
One of the first things you will need to have, of course, is a decently-configured PC with Windows 2000 or XP Home/Pro installed. By decently-configured, I mean at least a Pentium III 600MHz processor with no less than 128MB of RAM. If your PC doesn't match these basic specs, you won't even need to worry about reading on, because under Win2K or XP, your machine is already going to be under considerable stress. I don't care what the hardware nerds out there tell you. I've done exactly what I just advised against, and it was great as a basic desktop, but try to pull anything beyond basic email or websurfing, and your PC is likely to give you the finger and proceed to make your life a living hell. You've been warned.
The second thing you will need, and this is key, is a video card that has some sort of TV output. Most cards today provide this functionality in the form of S-Video. The port on the card looks a little bit like one of those round keyboard or mouse connectors, but with a different pin layout.
Other, high-end cards, such as the ATI All-In-Wonder series cards, have S-Video outputs as a matter of course, as well as a host of video input options. Now, at this point, I feel it's necessary to point out that you folks with High-Definition TVs and plasma displays most likely have another type of input called DVI. This connector looks totally different from S-Video, and will let your display act just like a standard PC monitor, rather than having to convert from the computer's standard display format to NTSC. This connector is optimal for tossing your PC's display on your DVI-capable TV, BUT, I'm not going into detail on those connections here. For you folks that have those sorts of TVs, I recommend talking with your local professional video store, or a mom-and-pop computer store. DO NOT go to Best Buy or Circuit City, as the high school kids there barely know their ass from a hole in the ground, and will have you buying equipment you don't need to do something they don't understand how to do in the first place.
Now then, it's a simple matter of connecting a cable, right? Well, yes and no. At this point, you should check your TV or VCR (if you have one connected to the TV) for that same S-Video plug. If you have it, great! You can simply run the cable that came with the video card from your computer to the other port. If you don't have that port on your TV or VCR, you're going to need an S-Video to RCA type converter. You can get this at any Radio Shack for around $20.
Make sure both the TV/VCR and the computer are turned completely off, and use the converter to run from the video input on your TV or VCR, to the S-Video cable that came with your video card. If you have one of the ATI All-In-Wonder cards, you already have the conversion done for you on the output of the card.
For the record, straight S-Video to S-Video connections are going to result in a better picture on your TV, because the signals are all kept separated within the cable, versus RCA, which melds all of it into one wavy, noisy signal. When all's said and done though, if you don't have S-Video input on your TV or VCR, there's not much you can do about it, short of buying a new TV or VCR. Buck up and deal with it man!
Okay, so now everything's plugged in, right? Turn everything on, and get Windows logged into an administrator-level account. Now here's where things can get a little fuzzy. You need to get Windows to send a video signal to the TV, because nine times out of ten, it won't do it until you tell it specifically to do just that.
Right-click on a blank area of the Desktop, and select Properties. In the window that pops up, select the Settings tab at the far top right of the window.
Don't worry if you don't have all those monitors showing up in your settings window. You may have more or less, depending on how you have your system built. The first thing you're going to do is click the Advanced button in the bottom right of the window.
In the next window that pops up, click the Displays tab. Here, you are going to enable the TV output function of your card. This looks different, depending on the video card you have installed, but the selection should be pretty obvious. For ATI All-In-Wonder cards, the TV selection may be grayed out, but if you click the Troubleshooting button, yet another window should popup, giving you option to "Force detection of the TV". Check that box, then click OK, and the TV selection should now be available. At this point, your TV may already be showing a nice mirror of your current monitor display. If it isn't, try clicking the Ok buttons until all the windows are closed. If it STILL doesn't show up, make sure your TV is set to Input or Aux1, or whatever your TV calls its line input. If you are connecting via VCR, make sure the VCR is set the same way (line in, Aux etc).
By this time, you are probably noticing that the picture looks pretty crappy. Well, while it IS possible to touch things up and make them look marginally better, for the most part, this is how a PC looks on a TV. Again, buck up and deal with it. I can promise you it looks much better for movies though.
Now, one last thing remains. Open your display settings dialog again. See that little resolution slider about the middle left of the window? It's probably at 1024x768 or higher. You actually need to slide that bugger down to 800x600. This will make things look a little more legible on your TV screen. You might also need to fine-tune the TV's screen size and position as well. For most video cards, this is done by clicking on that Advanced button, then on the Displays tab, then on the button that represents your TV. This should popup another window that gives you color and positioning controls. Adjust these settings until the screen looks better. Remember, the blurry text effect will NOT go away. That's just how it is for this sort of thing. You CAN diminish the jittery effect, the washed-out coloring, and exaggerated contrast though.
Now, you should be looking at a fairly decent replica of your Windows display on your TV. But wait, there's one more thing you're going to have to worry about. Most likely, you are connecting your PC to the TV so you can watch movies, right? Well, there's one caveat when doing this: Movie playback programs under Windows use this nifty little feature called "screen overlay" when they show a movie on the screen. This helps speed up the display so that you don't get a weird jittery or flickering effect when playing videos on some slower machines. The side effect to this feature is that the video cannot be played on a secondary display. In this case, that means your TV.
"But wait just a cot-damned second," you might be prone to say, "what did I just go through all this song and dance for if I can't play movies on the TV?" Well hold your horses there, son. I didn't say it wouldn't work at all. Just that it won't work YET. That is, until you have done one final adjustment.
Now, if you have purchased your video card in about the last couple of years, or at the very least have the latest drivers installed, the last step involved should be as simple as hitting the Alt and F5 keys at the same time. This should cause your monitor to go dark, and the TV to light up by itself. At this point, NOW you can watch movies on the TV.
There is one last point to make here. If you are like me, and have multiple monitors connected to your computer, either because your video card supports dual monitors, or because you have multiple video cards installed, you are going to have to shut the additional monitors off before the Alt-F5 trick will work. At least, that's how it is on my ATI All-In-Wonder 9600 Pro.
To go back to just using the computer on the monitor, simply Alt-F5 again, and it should come right back to the regular trusty monitor. At this point, it's safe to go back into your display settings window, and ramp your resolution back up to whatever you had it set at before.
There's a possibility that there's a method to permanently set hardware profiles so that you won't have to do all this setting and re-setting every time you want to watch a movie on TV, but that's for another article. Of course, if you're building a Media Center-style PC, that won't matter anyway.
If you have something you'd like to add to this article, or if you have some questions/comments regarding its content, send an email to deadweasel.toplevel@gmail.com
Deadweasel has been working with Windows-based computers for 15 years, and is a co-host of the SDRN Radio Show
For Media Center Edition, there are some standards you must adhere to in order for the program to work, such as specific TV and radio tuner cards, among other things, but there are other programs out there that will do the same job as Media Center, without the price tag or the hardware limitations. Media Portal is one such program. Although a little configuration is needed for this program to work with your hardware, it's a very flexible program, and best of all, it's free!
Media Portal looks and acts like Media Center Edition, without the restrictions.
This article won't cover installation of those programs, but today, I will show you how to get your TV working with your computer, as well as give some tips on the hardware that will let you get away with it in the first place.
One of the first things you will need to have, of course, is a decently-configured PC with Windows 2000 or XP Home/Pro installed. By decently-configured, I mean at least a Pentium III 600MHz processor with no less than 128MB of RAM. If your PC doesn't match these basic specs, you won't even need to worry about reading on, because under Win2K or XP, your machine is already going to be under considerable stress. I don't care what the hardware nerds out there tell you. I've done exactly what I just advised against, and it was great as a basic desktop, but try to pull anything beyond basic email or websurfing, and your PC is likely to give you the finger and proceed to make your life a living hell. You've been warned.
The second thing you will need, and this is key, is a video card that has some sort of TV output. Most cards today provide this functionality in the form of S-Video. The port on the card looks a little bit like one of those round keyboard or mouse connectors, but with a different pin layout.
Most cards have S-Video outputs
Other, high-end cards, such as the ATI All-In-Wonder series cards, have S-Video outputs as a matter of course, as well as a host of video input options. Now, at this point, I feel it's necessary to point out that you folks with High-Definition TVs and plasma displays most likely have another type of input called DVI. This connector looks totally different from S-Video, and will let your display act just like a standard PC monitor, rather than having to convert from the computer's standard display format to NTSC. This connector is optimal for tossing your PC's display on your DVI-capable TV, BUT, I'm not going into detail on those connections here. For you folks that have those sorts of TVs, I recommend talking with your local professional video store, or a mom-and-pop computer store. DO NOT go to Best Buy or Circuit City, as the high school kids there barely know their ass from a hole in the ground, and will have you buying equipment you don't need to do something they don't understand how to do in the first place.
Now then, it's a simple matter of connecting a cable, right? Well, yes and no. At this point, you should check your TV or VCR (if you have one connected to the TV) for that same S-Video plug. If you have it, great! You can simply run the cable that came with the video card from your computer to the other port. If you don't have that port on your TV or VCR, you're going to need an S-Video to RCA type converter. You can get this at any Radio Shack for around $20.
A simple S-Video to RCA converter is available at any Radio Shack.
Make sure both the TV/VCR and the computer are turned completely off, and use the converter to run from the video input on your TV or VCR, to the S-Video cable that came with your video card. If you have one of the ATI All-In-Wonder cards, you already have the conversion done for you on the output of the card.
For the record, straight S-Video to S-Video connections are going to result in a better picture on your TV, because the signals are all kept separated within the cable, versus RCA, which melds all of it into one wavy, noisy signal. When all's said and done though, if you don't have S-Video input on your TV or VCR, there's not much you can do about it, short of buying a new TV or VCR. Buck up and deal with it man!
The All-In-Wonder Output cords
Okay, so now everything's plugged in, right? Turn everything on, and get Windows logged into an administrator-level account. Now here's where things can get a little fuzzy. You need to get Windows to send a video signal to the TV, because nine times out of ten, it won't do it until you tell it specifically to do just that.
Right-click on a blank area of the Desktop, and select Properties. In the window that pops up, select the Settings tab at the far top right of the window.
The basic Windows display settings dialog
Don't worry if you don't have all those monitors showing up in your settings window. You may have more or less, depending on how you have your system built. The first thing you're going to do is click the Advanced button in the bottom right of the window.
In the next window that pops up, click the Displays tab. Here, you are going to enable the TV output function of your card. This looks different, depending on the video card you have installed, but the selection should be pretty obvious. For ATI All-In-Wonder cards, the TV selection may be grayed out, but if you click the Troubleshooting button, yet another window should popup, giving you option to "Force detection of the TV". Check that box, then click OK, and the TV selection should now be available. At this point, your TV may already be showing a nice mirror of your current monitor display. If it isn't, try clicking the Ok buttons until all the windows are closed. If it STILL doesn't show up, make sure your TV is set to Input or Aux1, or whatever your TV calls its line input. If you are connecting via VCR, make sure the VCR is set the same way (line in, Aux etc).
By this time, you are probably noticing that the picture looks pretty crappy. Well, while it IS possible to touch things up and make them look marginally better, for the most part, this is how a PC looks on a TV. Again, buck up and deal with it. I can promise you it looks much better for movies though.
Now, one last thing remains. Open your display settings dialog again. See that little resolution slider about the middle left of the window? It's probably at 1024x768 or higher. You actually need to slide that bugger down to 800x600. This will make things look a little more legible on your TV screen. You might also need to fine-tune the TV's screen size and position as well. For most video cards, this is done by clicking on that Advanced button, then on the Displays tab, then on the button that represents your TV. This should popup another window that gives you color and positioning controls. Adjust these settings until the screen looks better. Remember, the blurry text effect will NOT go away. That's just how it is for this sort of thing. You CAN diminish the jittery effect, the washed-out coloring, and exaggerated contrast though.
Now, you should be looking at a fairly decent replica of your Windows display on your TV. But wait, there's one more thing you're going to have to worry about. Most likely, you are connecting your PC to the TV so you can watch movies, right? Well, there's one caveat when doing this: Movie playback programs under Windows use this nifty little feature called "screen overlay" when they show a movie on the screen. This helps speed up the display so that you don't get a weird jittery or flickering effect when playing videos on some slower machines. The side effect to this feature is that the video cannot be played on a secondary display. In this case, that means your TV.
"But wait just a cot-damned second," you might be prone to say, "what did I just go through all this song and dance for if I can't play movies on the TV?" Well hold your horses there, son. I didn't say it wouldn't work at all. Just that it won't work YET. That is, until you have done one final adjustment.
Now, if you have purchased your video card in about the last couple of years, or at the very least have the latest drivers installed, the last step involved should be as simple as hitting the Alt and F5 keys at the same time. This should cause your monitor to go dark, and the TV to light up by itself. At this point, NOW you can watch movies on the TV.
There is one last point to make here. If you are like me, and have multiple monitors connected to your computer, either because your video card supports dual monitors, or because you have multiple video cards installed, you are going to have to shut the additional monitors off before the Alt-F5 trick will work. At least, that's how it is on my ATI All-In-Wonder 9600 Pro.
To go back to just using the computer on the monitor, simply Alt-F5 again, and it should come right back to the regular trusty monitor. At this point, it's safe to go back into your display settings window, and ramp your resolution back up to whatever you had it set at before.
There's a possibility that there's a method to permanently set hardware profiles so that you won't have to do all this setting and re-setting every time you want to watch a movie on TV, but that's for another article. Of course, if you're building a Media Center-style PC, that won't matter anyway.
If you have something you'd like to add to this article, or if you have some questions/comments regarding its content, send an email to deadweasel.toplevel@gmail.com
Deadweasel has been working with Windows-based computers for 15 years, and is a co-host of the SDRN Radio Show
