Computer to TV????

[g4ry13]

How do you link a computer up to a TV, is it just a simple case of a scart or AV cable that plugs into the TV?

[alunr]

You need somekind of TV out device but unless its a TFT/LCD TV the results are usually a bit poor due to the differing resolutions of PCs and TV's

[g4ry13]

So if i'm playing a DVD on my PC to the TV will i notice a great difference in resolution etc.?

[alunr]

I "think" DVD's and games are okay its text based stuff that gets awkward.

[Mark.S]

Most cards that support TV out use an S-Video connection so make sure the TV has the appropriate connector.

[pdV6]

g4ry13 said:

So if i'm playing a DVD on my PC to the TV will i notice a great difference in resolution etc.?

Should be fine, as the DVD was probably optimised to be played at TV resolutions in the 1st place.

Try running Windoze on a TV on the other hand...

[Robertuk]

Years ago quite a few people found this unsuitable as it can damage TV's. Not sure if this is still true, but I wouldnt want to plug my PC into my widescreen just in case. Fine for the odd occasion.

Best bet is to get a standalone DVD player.
If you email me I can tell you a great place to get them from ( famous store - in guiness book of records for highest sales per square ft!).

From about £60 !

[pdV6]

That sounds a bit rich...

[rpguk]

Robertuk said:

Years ago quite a few people found this unsuitable as it can damage TV's. Not sure if this is still true, but I wouldnt want to plug my PC into my widescreen just in case. Fine for the odd occasion. Best bet is to get a standalone DVD player. If you email me I can tell you a great place to get them from ( famous store - in guiness book of records for highest sales per square ft!). From about £60 !

As I understand its something to do with the same static image being burnt onto the screen, for example the start button at the bottom left hand corner of the screen never changes so might be burnt onto the screen of some TV's

You can sometimes see this on the screens of arcade machines, and the one that REALLY pisses me off is in waterloo train station where they have a plasma screen that does nothing but show the logo of the train operator at the end of every platform, thats it nothing a piece of paper couldn't do but they use a plasma screen

[CarZee]

rpguk said:

As I understand its something to do with the same static image being burnt onto the screen, for example the start button at the bottom left hand corner of the screen never changes so might be burnt onto the screen of some TV's

in spite of our plasma screen being designed to do 1024x768 XGA & HDTV, it sufferes extremely badly from burn-in & needs to be colour-washed after being used with the PC for any length of time.

Suffice it to say that the screen-saver on that PC is set to a 1 minute time-in.

IME, connecting a PC to a regular TV is a complete waste of time other than for watching a DVD - and if that's all you want to do, buy an MPEG decoder card with TV-Out on it for far superior results. We have a Margi PCMCIA/Cardbus one.. very good.

[Rich-UK]

If you get a video card that has a composite(TV) output, you can usually set your monitor and TV to differerent resolutions, so you can have your monitor at 1280x1024 (or whatever) and the TV at 640x480, you should be able to (almost) read Gassing Station on your telly then.

Remember tellys mostly run at only 50Hz so you'll get a headache if you try to read small text for too long.