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Playing DivX from my PC to my TV??? Possible?

Ben Franklin (Reviewer) posted this on Friday, 15th November 2002, 21:29

I started a thread earlier this week about a DivX DVD player. Well I was thinking... could I connect my TV up to my PC and watch DivX through that?

I`ve got a GeForce 4 Ti4400 graphics card, so how could I do this? What leads would I need to have/buy? Any advice would be appreciated!

RE: Playing DivX from my PC to my TV??? Possible?

steveeCee (Mostly Harmless) posted this on Friday, 15th November 2002, 22:47

Have you got TV out (yellow phono connector) on your PC grafix card?
If you have you`ll be quids in.
Just connect this via RCA to SCART or into front AV yellow connector on your TV/Video. Then connect Audio Right and left (red and black or white) to the audio in or SCART and other end to `line out` on your PC back panel (need a 3.5 mm headphone jack to phono adaptor). It should play OK - quality is not bad but not brilliant usually. I have done this before from laptop with N-vidia TV out grafix and from PC with ATI grafix card TV out.

RE: Playing DivX from my PC to my TV??? Possible?

Ben Franklin (Reviewer) posted this on Friday, 15th November 2002, 23:34

I haven`t got the yellow phono connector, no, but I have got a S-Video socket. I`ve got a lead (with a red S-Video connector) where on that there are four other connectors on it. I`ve got a yellow phono lead which I put into the front of the telly and then put the other end into one of the connectors, but got nothing.

This could`ve been down to my Graphics card not being set up properly, but the settings on "Display" wouldn`t let me have a second (clone) monitor. Any ideas?

RE: Playing DivX from my PC to my TV??? Possible?

blodwin (Competent) posted this on Saturday, 16th November 2002, 08:52

Hi

Try reloading the driver to access the settings .And use only the driver disk that came with the card not the downloads for the chipset maker as they wont always allow the sockets to work.I have a clone version of the geforce 2 and i had that problem until i went back to the oringinal disk.

bye

R.B

RE: Playing DivX from my PC to my TV??? Possible?

steveeCee (Mostly Harmless) posted this on Saturday, 16th November 2002, 17:13

Hi Benji_F,
S-Video output is not the same as composite line video - S-Video splits luminance and chrominance, the other is a composite PAL signal.

I don`t think the two are entirely compatible. S-Vid tends to go in via a dedicated S-Vid socket. Composite goes in via either SCART or phono (yellow socket).

As for your graphics card - it might be the same as my ATI and the Invidia laptop in functionality:

Firstly are you sure that the `mini-DIN` type socket is S-Vid? If it is you`ll need to connect to an S-Vid input on your telly or video deck. On the other hand it might be a video breakout like ATI all in Wonder - they use a mini-DIN to a breakout box with phono connectors on it - I wouldn`t know without looking.

Secondly, the important bit is that the driver/card autosenses when a connection is made to a TV - the TV out options simply weren`t available (greyed out) on the PC display setup until I got a good connection to the telly. This was the same on both my Laptop and ATI Rage Pro 128 TV out card. This card had dedicated S-Video mini-DIN and yellow composite vid outputs side by side.

In summary get a correct connection - take advice from Blodwin and make sure you use the manufacturers drivers - Win98 and XPwill nearly always drive the standard video card features but won`t generally drive the TV out bit. Then hopefully you can configure the TV out. Point to note - the Grafix card often has to drop the refresh rate to 50 or 60Hz - some monitors can`t handle this and will blank out - you`ll have to see.
Regards,
SteveC.

This item was edited on Saturday, 16th November 2002, 17:16

RE: Playing DivX from my PC to my TV??? Possible?

tetley (Harmless) posted this on Saturday, 16th November 2002, 19:38

dont bother,, why dont you encode them to vcd,, they will be much better quality use this, the best program ive found tmpgenc,, only takes 1 hour to encode a divx 90 min movie to vcd format,, it will also encode avi, mpegs, pics, just about everything,, im on 600k broadband im forever downloading porn and norm films from kazza,, this program never lets me down,, it also encodes them into svcd or dvd if you want but takes longer. ive tried the leads thing this is a better way believe me.

RE: Playing DivX from my PC to my TV??? Possible?

Ben Franklin (Reviewer) posted this on Saturday, 16th November 2002, 19:53

Hi tetley, I use TMPGEnc already, but can`t be arsed with constantly having to convert it (always to SVCD if possible - far better quality) and then cut it up. I just want to d/l them and watch them, as its far more convenient.

RE: Playing DivX from my PC to my TV??? Possible?

Spammy (Mostly Harmless) posted this on Tuesday, 19th November 2002, 09:14

Hi,

The problem you state about not being able to select a second display... it`s because the nVidia drivers detect the displays its connected to. If you connect the card to the TV and then click "Detect Displays" all the options then become available.

With regards to the cable`s you`ll need...

S-Video/SVHS Lead (Male on both ends)
3.5mm Jack to 2 RCA Phono Lead

If you havent got a S-Video socket on your TV somewhere then you will need a SCART adaptor which plugs into the SCART socket and gives you a RCA Video socket, S-Video socket and two phono audio sockets.

Regards,

Sam

RE: Playing DivX from my PC to my TV??? Possible?

Ben Franklin (Reviewer) posted this on Tuesday, 19th November 2002, 16:16

I did the "Detect Displays" thing. No difference. :(

RE: Playing DivX from my PC to my TV??? Possible?

steveeCee (Mostly Harmless) posted this on Tuesday, 19th November 2002, 23:02

Deja f***in Vu Spammy,
Wot was I sayin about "..autodetecting TVs connected.."
....about 3 posts ago!

mumble mumble ...nobody ever listens to me... mumble mumble...

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