S-Video versus Composite

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Papa

I just tried using my 27-inch TV (CRT) set as a monitor by plugging in a
composite (yellow plug) from it to my computer video card composite
connector (yellow). It works, but the resolution is pretty bad. I can't even
read the text. Will S-video be much better? Thanks.
 
Papa said:
I just tried using my 27-inch TV (CRT) set as a monitor by plugging in a
composite (yellow plug) from it to my computer video card composite
connector (yellow). It works, but the resolution is pretty bad. I can't even
read the text. Will S-video be much better? Thanks.
Click to expand...

Yes, S-Video is better quality than Composite.

But a standard definition television is inherently low resolution and
you will never get a picture that looks anything like what you'd get on
a monitor.
 
Thanks, Will.

Will Dormann said:
Yes, S-Video is better quality than Composite.

But a standard definition television is inherently low resolution and you
will never get a picture that looks anything like what you'd get on a
monitor.
Click to expand...
 
Papa said:
I just tried using my 27-inch TV (CRT) set as a monitor by plugging in a
composite (yellow plug) from it to my computer video card composite
connector (yellow). It works, but the resolution is pretty bad. I can't even
read the text. Will S-video be much better? Thanks.
Click to expand...
S-video would not make that much difference. A TV is fine for watching
video, but not much good to read text / browse websites etc. If you lower
the resolution of your desktop though, a TV is useable. The most a standard
TV can handle is 800x600, 640x480 would be easier to read.
If you are using Nvidia drivers, their support for TV out has improved
massively over the years - you can independantly set colour, brightness etc
for the TV, and have yet more independant settings for video playback. The
drivers do allow you to output a higher resolution desktop, say 1280x720,
onto a TV, but any text would be almost unreadable...
Graham
 
GTS said:
S-video would not make that much difference. A TV is fine for watching
video, but not much good to read text / browse websites etc. If you lower
the resolution of your desktop though, a TV is useable. The most a standard
TV can handle is 800x600, 640x480 would be easier to read.
If you are using Nvidia drivers, their support for TV out has improved
massively over the years - you can independantly set colour, brightness etc
for the TV, and have yet more independant settings for video playback. The
drivers do allow you to output a higher resolution desktop, say 1280x720,
onto a TV, but any text would be almost unreadable...
Graham
Click to expand...
I agree with others about Composite and S-Video. Just thought I'd mention
that the Windows Magnifier makes reading things like file names and check
boxes possible. If your just doing simple things like watching /capturing
video it can make a lot of difference.
HTH
 
Papa said:
Thanks everyone. As usual in this NG, great responses, and helpful.
Click to expand...

A few extra tips. I have a small homebuilt HTPC S-Video'd into a 27 incher too.
I run that 800x600 and large fonts. The large fonts help a lot but can be a
problem for certain 'large' dialogue boxes so I also have a small 14 inch, 'not
good for much else', monitor for those purposes (dual head video). Note that
simply setting the individual fonts to a larger size under the 'appearance' tab
does not increase the fonts on dialogue boxes whereas the 'large fonts' option
in display, settings, advanced does (and is why those large dialogue boxes
sometimes don't 'fit' the 800x600).

Excessive brightness/contrast (those who wear sunglasses while viewing TV) will
cause blooming. Not all that big a deal on a 'TV' picture but it severely hurts
text, especially since you're pushing it with relatively small, by TV standards,
computer text. High color saturation (those who like screaming neon glow) will
too as that causes color smearing.

Theme colors can make a big difference because TV chroma signals don't all have
the same bandwidth, so some have better resolution than others. Plus, a 'kinda
difficult to read' color combo on a normal monitor is just so much worse when
the text is already marginal. The luminance signal has the lion's share of the
bandwidth so light/dark changes are crisper than color shifts. I.E. black text
on a white background is a heck of a lot sharper than a uniformly bright red on
blue.

See about adjusting your sharpness control. A little 'noise' in the picture
might be better than 'smoothed' (by low sharpness setting) text and the noise
will tend to vanish at normal viewing distances anyway. Too much sharpness and
it'll ghost the edges though. Look for a compromise.

And, of course, if you have a focus control, optimize that for the
brightness/contrast setting you decide on (it does vary depending on those).
Many, if not most, TVs of that size these days don't have a user accessible one
though.
 
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