tv for pc usage?

[rb]

I have a 19" Symphonic color tv. Nothing on the back except the 75ohm plug
for ant.

On the front, there are two, small coax looking plugs labelled "audio" and
"video", with some other controls. It's also got a DVD accessway and says
digital.

With those, are those what I'll need for an pc-to-tv converter?

 

[Paul]

I have a 19" Symphonic color tv. Nothing on the back except the 75ohm plug
for ant.

On the front, there are two, small coax looking plugs labelled "audio" and
"video", with some other controls. It's also got a DVD accessway and says
digital.

With those, are those what I'll need for an pc-to-tv converter?

It would have helped if you mentioned the TV model number.

I found a manual here for a 19" Symphonic.

http://www.symphonic.us/pdf/om/BL519DD.pdf

On page 8, there is a front view of the unit. There are three jacks next
to one another. They are labeled video, audio-L, and audio-R.

I presume your computer speakers give good sound, so you don't have
to bother with the audio. If you do want the audio to work, you will
need to get a 1/8" miniplug to dual RCA adapter at RadioShack. Just
tell them, you are going from computer Lineout to dual audio on a
TV, and they'll know which one to give you.

This is an example from RadioShack. I picked this purely to demonstrate
the two kinds of connectors. The 1/8" plugs into your computer sound,
while the two female RCA, will need audio cables with RCA plugs, to
go from there to the TV. RadioShack also carries Monster brand cables,
but at $50 to solve this problem, I don't think I'll be buying them any
time soon.

http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2103225

OK, so now for the video. The plug on the front is for composite
video, with 75 ohm impedance. You need to use a good quality coax
cable, with RCA on the end, to plug into the TV.

So yes, the video plug on the front is the one you want to use.

Since you haven't given any details on your "PC to TV" converter,
I cannot say anything more about that part.

On the back of the TV set, there is "Ant". That is for an RF signal
at 75 ohms. To use "rabbit ears", you'd need to use a 300 ohm to
75 ohm balun (balanced to unbalanced). Some baluns can be fitted
right onto the connector, and a balun may have come with the set.
Or, "Ant" can be connected to cable TV type coax.

The "Coaxial" jack had me fooled. After reading a bit more of the manual,
the "Coaxial" seems to be an SPDIF output. That is 75 ohms, and
you'd need a cable with what looks like an F-series on one end,
and RCA male on the other end (to go to a stereo receiver's SPDIF
input jack). So for your computer hookup, neither of those is
any good. Apparently, when that set plays DVDs, you can either
get stereo sound on the SPDIF, or via Dolby AC3, it can send
5.1 audio to a suitably equipped stereo receiver. They would have
been better off putting TOSLink on the back, as there would be
less possibility of confusion with the jack's function that
way.

Paul

 

[rb]

Thanks. Good answers. I'm fumbling along trying to get things ready for a
tv presentation off my pc. I think I can do it good, now.

The one thing more I'm wondering about is what are the wireless pc to to
converter sets? Are those just maybe better and different? They do seem
to cost more. They don't hook to the tv direct, do they?

 

[Paul]

Thanks. Good answers. I'm fumbling along trying to get things ready for a
tv presentation off my pc. I think I can do it good, now.

The one thing more I'm wondering about is what are the wireless pc to to
converter sets? Are those just maybe better and different? They do seem
to cost more. They don't hook to the tv direct, do they?

A scan converter is not capable of retaining fine details. As you increase
the input resolution, fine lines start to disappear. 640x480 works pretty
well, but by computer standards, is pretty limiting. In our meeting room
at work, we were able to use 1024x768 feeding a scan converter, but
the picture always seemed to be "flat" and lacking contrast. (We used a
projection device, and had a projection screen to work with.)

A wireless scan converter, adds to that all the limitations of wireless
transmission. So it only makes matters worse. I've seen some product
reviews, where *all* the customers were dissatisfied with the noisy
picture quality.

You really need to see critical customer reviews, to see what they're
really like. It is easy to throw money away.

Another device used compression in the transmission path, and effectively
what happens, is you cannot run a movie through it. You can only do
static Powerpoint presentations with it. And the advertising copy does
not alert the reader to that fact.

Perhaps a better question to ask you, is what kind of presentations
are you doing. Are they one on one, in small meeting rooms ? Or will
you be visiting auditoriums or very large meeting rooms ? There is
only so much you can do with a 19" TV set.

What I'd want to drag with me, is a laptop with extraordinarily flexible
I/O capability. VGA, DVI, component (RGB) or S-video. That gives you more
options when visiting a strange location and not knowing what kind of
display devices are available.

People are working on external video cards for laptops. I don't know if
any are commercially available yet or not. One ingredient, is having
an Expresscard slot in the laptop, as that gives a PCI Express x1 lane
(250MB/sec). Which is sufficient to control a desktop video card. With
a desktop video card, you'd have more output option types. These are
teaser pics of what they're working on.

http://www.asus.com.tw/news_show.aspx?id=5369
http://www.dailytech.com/more+asus+xg+station+details+unveiled/article6313.htm
http://www.4gamer.net/news/history/2007.04/20070403202840detail.html

This is a more aggressive version, but laptops don't currently offer the
needed interface. The Asus device is more realistic at the moment
and just needs someone to sell it.

http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=7995

Paul

 

[GT]

I have a 19" Symphonic color tv. Nothing on the back except the 75ohm plug
for ant.

On the front, there are two, small coax looking plugs labelled "audio" and
"video", with some other controls. It's also got a DVD accessway and
says digital.

With those, are those what I'll need for an pc-to-tv converter?

Does your graphics card have an S-Video out port (might be labelled TV-Out)
? If so, then you need to connect with the cable that came with your
graphics card that to the yellow 'coax looking' port labelled "video" on the
front of your TV, then select AV on the TV.

The other 'coax looking' port labelled "audio" on the front of your TVis the
audio connector.

 

[rb]

Nope. I'll stick to the wired pc to tv converters. Just putting news
chanells up on a TV .

Good to know stuff about the wireless. I've copied your message in case I
ever get into this with church stuff.