TV as second monitor - how-to

[Bill W]

I think this is more of an XP question than an MSN Messenger question.

My daughter and I use MSN Messenger video conferencing so we can see our
granddaughter and she can see us. We have been doing this for over a year
and everything does exactly what we want. Even though my daughter has an
excellent 20" monitor, she would like to display the conferencing screens on
her much larger television so my granddaughter can watch from any point in
the room.

Can anyone suggest a relatively inexpensive device that will allow us to
cable a TV into a PC as a second monitor? The TV only has to
display/duplicate what's on the main PC monitor - it doesn't have to
function separately. It would be ideal if the interface accepted
inexpensive cabling between the PC and TV such as S-video or composite
video. The TV is about 20' from the PC and in the same room, so cabling
would be easy. She has a pretty standard 2+ghz Dell computer running XP.
Thanks for your help.

 

[Dan N]

It's cheaper to buy a videocard that supports S-video out. Any new
card has it, even old ones for less than $40. I'm guessing your
videocard is integrated into the motherboard, so it doesn't have TV-out
included. I recommend compgeeks.com or newegg.com to purchase one.
First, make sure that your Dell can support AGP videocards, since those
are the most popular. Otherwise, you would have to buy a PCI videocard
(not PCI-E) which is a little more expensive.

The second monitor/TV-Out properties would be in your Windows display
settings after you install the videocard drivers.

 

[Bill W]

Dan,

Thanks for your reply. Is the process as simple as installing a second
video card (in this case, one that can send the signal to a TV) and then
select through XP the card/device I want to use as the monitor at the time?
If so, then I assume that selecting one of two monitors is simply selecting
one of two video cards. Do I understand the concept? Thanks again.

Bill

 

[Dan N]

Well, you wouldn't be using two videocards at the same time, you will
only be using the AGP videocard that has the TV-out. You will connect
both the VGA cable and S-Video cable to that videocard, and the rest of
the process is like you described. You tell Windows to use the TV-Out
as a second monitor, or a duplicate display, it's pretty easy. Just
change it in Display settings somewhere. Btw, you should set the TV
resolution to as low as possible to make it as clear as possible,
anything higher than 640x480 just gets blurry.

 

[Bill W]

Thank you, Dan. I discovered something I wasn't aware of. My current video
card already has the s-video connector. Up until now I didn't care and
never checked. Your explanation lead me to the right place. I've tested it
and everything looks great. Thank you very much for your help.

Bill