Using television/monitor

der Moench · Post by **der Moench** » Sat Oct 21, 2006 9:06 am

So I bought a TV - my first one in a few hundred years - and I intend to use it for a display. But I found that TVs have become so exceedingly complex that I can't get the thing to work. If you have any experience/expertise, read on and I welcome any advice!

The TV is a Philips 37" LCD. It has the follwing input possibilities:

AV1 and AV2: take YPbPr video and L/R audio.
AV3: takes Video, S-video, and L/R audio.
HMDI (which is just HDMI - digital video/audio.
And then a SIDE connections port: Video, S-video, USB, and L/R audio.

Supported video formats are 480i, 480p, 720p, and 1080i.

My computer is an Alienware laptop. It has an ATI mobility Radeon X800 video card. It's got DVI port, serial port, parallel port. It also has a CATV and S-video port, but I do not believe they are enabled (need to get a TV tuner for that, and I didn't).

I originally bought a DVI to HDMI cable, and hooked it up that way. It sorta worked - I didn't seem to get sound, but I did get video. Unfortunately, the video didn't quite fit the screen, and it completely locked me out of changing my resolution in the Control Panel (Windows XP).

Any insights would be greatly appreciated!

Malta Soron · Post by **Malta Soron** » Wed Oct 25, 2006 12:35 am

I don't know much about TVs and computers, but IIRC you need a tv tuner to get a signal into your laptop. The S-Video port on your laptop is for an outwards signal. I'd try running a cable from the laptop's S-video port.
For sounds the tv needs a signal to the L/R audio ports. Maybe you could run some sort of splitter cable between the audio out port (I mean the one you use for speakers and headsets) or you laptop and the tv.
I don't know about the resolution; you could try setting the tv as a second monitor.
But if I were you I'd go to some computer store where they know about this stuff.

---
I performed a quick search: here they say the same, but better formulated:

If you have an svideo-out jack or rca video-out jack, you'll be able to hook a standard male-male RCA or svideo cable up to your tv. (Or an svideo to rca adapter if your tv doesn't have svideo)

If you've got the video out jack, then your video drivers will have a tab in the properties dedicated to the output of the video, whether to the LCD or the TV or both. Select it there.

You can by a 1/8" stereo miniplug to two RCA male cable at radio shack to hook up the headphone jack to the L/R audio inputs of your TV.

Somebody else was talking about this in a different question, so I tried it on mine last night. Less than $20 worth of parts at radio shack ($20 canadian, which is like 45cents U.S. or something, lol, just kidding) and it worked beautifully.

der Moench · Post by **der Moench** » Thu Oct 26, 2006 3:35 pm

Hey, thanks, Malta. I haven't tried the S-video, for a number of reasons: I heard they have lower quality output; I didn't know if I had the capability (not having that tv tuner); and I didn't have the cables. Maybe I'll go looking for the cables at a computer store and see if they can tell me if I am on the right track. Thanks again.

Peace.

der Moench · Post by **der Moench** » Sun Nov 12, 2006 9:22 am

Well, I worked with the DVI to HDMI cable, and got the screen to appear correctly on both the laptop and the TV (finally able to adjust resolution). I can now see exactly what I see on the laptop screen on the big (TV) screen. Yay!

However, trying to run NWN2, I get a message "Could not find apporopriate 3D device, quitting program," or sumthin.

Any guesses?

Kipi · Post by **Kipi** » Sun Nov 12, 2006 10:16 am

Probably your 3D card doesn't support the tv-connection...

and s-video isn't best one. Do you have scart in your tv? Not sure how regular it's other countries but if you have and you are able to get s-video/scart adapter, you will get better results (from my experience...)

der Moench · Post by **der Moench** » Mon Nov 13, 2006 5:42 am

Solved

Well, I do believe I have hit on a solution, though probably not in a recommended fashion.

I was, as noted, having issues with NWN2. So, using the Fn-F7 feature (which toggles between only the computer monitor, to only the TV, to both), I set the mode to computer screen only and started up NWN2. After it was running I toggled to both, and ... it worked! I played a few hours yesterday, and never seemed to have any issues. I now enjoy my NWN2 in 37" LCD!

Thanks for the replies.

Peace.

Malta Soron · Post by **Malta Soron** » Mon Nov 13, 2006 2:40 pm

You're welcome. Now I'm jealous