TV Out?

EnverexEnverex Worcester, UK Icrontian
edited June 2005 in Hardware
My laptop (The Sager 5660) has a TV out on it, it's an S-Video connection by the looks of it (4 pin Din). I have a Din to Phono connector connected to it and then a phono to phono cable connected to my VCRs AV in port (the yellow phono input). Now I know the Phono input works fine on the VCR as I was using it with my Amiga earlier, but with my laptop I don't seem to be able to get anything out of it.

It doesn't detect the TV on the display outputs Advanced Tab, and when I tell it to force detection it still doesn't find anything.

I've not used a TV with a PC before so I'm probably just doing something obviously wrong...

Comments

  • drasnordrasnor Starship Operator Hawthorne, CA Icrontian
    edited June 2005
    I always just right-click on the '2' in Display and select 'Attached' at which point detection and life occur. Works for every graphics card I've ever used.

    -drasnor :fold:
  • EnverexEnverex Worcester, UK Icrontian
    edited June 2005
    It only shows the one screen there (Windows 2000) but it does say "Multiple Monitors on ATi RADEON 9000 MOBILITY"
  • drasnordrasnor Starship Operator Hawthorne, CA Icrontian
    edited June 2005
    Will it let you use the TV as your primary display? There should be some sort of Fn key combo that lets you do this. Additionally, I just read the ATI Mobility Radeon 9000 and it says multi-head is an OEM option. This site should also be useful: http://www.realtimesoft.com/multimon/faq.asp .

    -drasnor :fold:
  • tcithtcith Sydney, Australia Member
    edited June 2005
    Enverex wrote:
    My laptop (The Sager 5660) has a TV out on it, it's an S-Video connection by the looks of it (4 pin Din). I have a Din to Phono connector connected to it and then a phono to phono cable connected to my VCRs AV in port (the yellow phono input). Now I know the Phono input works fine on the VCR as I was using it with my Amiga earlier, but with my laptop I don't seem to be able to get anything out of it.

    It doesn't detect the TV on the display outputs Advanced Tab, and when I tell it to force detection it still doesn't find anything.

    I've not used a TV with a PC before so I'm probably just doing something obviously wrong...

    Let me get this right - your doing a straight through connection from S-video to RCA (composite video)? - no conversion or correction device inbetween??

    S-video is a completely different signal type to a straight RCA (composite) - the best you can hope for is a distorted black and white picture - the worst ..well nothing .. even with a converter you will get a pretty ordinary picture as the chrominance and luminance signals are now combined instead of seperate.

    one last thing - to get a picture (if your above connection does work) on the alternate screen (other than the LCD) does your laptop require you to hit it's "function + alt screen" keys - eg: on an IBM it's FN+F4
  • drasnordrasnor Starship Operator Hawthorne, CA Icrontian
    edited June 2005
    That isn't true. S-Video and Composite are the same signal except that S-Video has the components of the signal split up. Simply wrapping S-Video signal pins together yields a composite signal.

    You're probably thinking of RGB or YPbPr/YCbCr.

    -drasnor :fold:
  • tcithtcith Sydney, Australia Member
    edited June 2005
    drasnor wrote:
    That isn't true. S-Video and Composite are the same signal except that S-Video has the components of the signal split up. Simply wrapping S-Video signal pins together yields a composite signal.

    You're probably thinking of RGB or YPbPr/YCbCr.

    -drasnor :fold:

    I beg to differ it's not - I use S-video and composite connections all the time - my s-video to composite adapter I use improves the signal dramatically (otherwise I get a rather distored fuzzy image) and on some televions it will not sync at all and I just get distorted crud
  • EnverexEnverex Worcester, UK Icrontian
    edited June 2005
    Why else would I have a cable that is Din on one side and fits the Laptop, and a composite on the other end...

    But yeah, this is the yellow Av type cable, not a standard coax TV cable :P

    I tried the FN + Screen key, didn't do anything.
  • drasnordrasnor Starship Operator Hawthorne, CA Icrontian
    edited June 2005
    tcith wrote:
    I beg to differ it's not - I use S-video and composite connections all the time - my s-video to composite adapter
    What exactly do you think those are? There's no power connection, so there's no active signal conversion. They perform S-Video to Composite conversion by adding chrominance and luminance together to get composite. Why else do you think it's called composite? Some of these "converters" use coaxial shielded components instead of wire buses so obviously their build and signal quality will be higher, but they all operate on the same principle.

    composite
    1. Made up of distinct components; compound.
    tcith wrote:
    I use improves the signal dramatically (otherwise I get a rather distored fuzzy image) and on some televions it will not sync at all and I just get distorted crud
    That's because some televisions can't sync to the signal your computer is spitting out. I have TV's that will take 1024x768 spat out over S-Video and converted to composite, but most TV's won't sync to more than 800x600 and most older TV's top out at 640x480 or so. That's a TV sync problem and has nothing to do with your adapter.

    Want to build an adapter? Go here. I'll admit that I was wrong earlier, the chroma has to be softened by a capacitive filter. Saying the signal is completely different is total bunk though.

    -drasnor :fold:
  • EnverexEnverex Worcester, UK Icrontian
    edited June 2005
    I'll take some photos later just to show what I am using, but I can't see any obvious reason why this isn't working...
  • drasnordrasnor Starship Operator Hawthorne, CA Icrontian
    edited June 2005
    Enverex wrote:
    I tried the FN + Screen key, didn't do anything.
    If that's the case you have bigger problems. I'd update the graphics card drivers and if that didn't work call the OEM. This is beyond me.

    -drasnor :fold:
  • EnverexEnverex Worcester, UK Icrontian
    edited June 2005
    Using the latest Omega drivers at the moment...
    The FN + Monitor works if I connect another monitor to the output, I mean in regards to the TV.
  • EnverexEnverex Worcester, UK Icrontian
    edited June 2005
    No other ideas?
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