television screen as my computer monitor

[targa]

i have found the cables in order to do this, but i was wondering, to all those out there gifted with more computer knoledge then myself, do i need software to make this happen?

if so, can someone reccomend a program to use?

[CdocZ]

You most likely do not need software.

[my porsche]

you should get the moniter that has a built in tv, it has picture in picture so you can have the tv screen on the corner and use the computer also, my aunt has one its pretty aweosme like a 20" monitre

[Matra et Alpine]

It all depends on your video card what features you can have.

Let us know and we can liekly spell it all out.

BUT if you're on Windows XP then it will be all enabled and built in. You jsut have to go to the display properties and enable the TV video output. Some cards include video in so you can put it in series with the rest of your a/v and have picture in picture done by the PC :)

[Clique]

MY POSRSCHE u talking about that black 20 inch SONY moniter. i got that and the quality is excellent.
as for the television question i recently bought my computer and connected it up to the ariels i get pictures but no sound. can any1 help me on tht plz...

[Godlaus]

Most of the the new nvidia line of video cards feature a TV line in, and as do the AIW ATI cards. There's software included with the video card that'll allow this, and guide you through it.

[BjD]

MY POSRSCHE u talking about that black 20 inch SONY moniter. i got that and the quality is excellent.
as for the television question i recently bought my computer and connected it up to the ariels i get pictures but no sound. can any1 help me on tht plz...

Assuming it has a passthrough cable for the sound, that plugs into your LINE IN on your sound card, you may just have to select it in Windows. It usually defaults to the MIC input. Bring up the mixer control, go to the 'Inputs' section, and select LINE IN instead of MIC. The mixer is usually in the Control Panel, your sound card may have installed a dedicated mixer program.

And @ targa, assuming you're using the SVIDEO output (not one of those cheap VGA>SCART jobbies), your graphics card drivers should allow you to set up the TV output :)

[CdocZ]

Wait........I just remembered something.......Targa, how much did those cables cost?

[:Exige:]

I use my TV as a 2nd monitor .. useful for editing videos because you can display the video in TV format on the TV and edit it on your monitor. And I can have MSN on the TV and my work on my monitor.

[Cotterik]

if your graphics card (or video card) enables tv-out then yes, you can work it, and the software would've come with the card, if not, buy one

[spi-ti-tout]

Very Good

[targa]

i have an iMac G3 with OSX 10.3, getting 10.4 later this week

i found a USB-to-S-Video converter, like $48, im sure one can be found for less, but i havent really look yet

after that it should just be either USB or S-Video cable extensions, found a 50ft USB extension with step up and step down converters for $25

im not buying a new monitor though

[pimento]

USB can be used for video? It's not a USB to PS/2 converter, is it?

[2ndclasscitizen]

My PC has TV out on my Raedon 9200 but it looks like shit on our TV (a brand New 75cm WS Philips), you have to fiddle with the resolutions heaps, and most stuff for me was to small to read, i just used to watch videos before i got a DVD burner

[Matra et Alpine]

My PC has TV out on my Raedon 9200 but it looks like shit on our TV (a brand New 75cm WS Philips), you have to fiddle with the resolutions heaps, and most stuff for me was to small to read, i just used to watch videos before i got a DVD burner
Basic TVs don't make good monitors because the analogue TV signals are only good for 550 lines of resolutions ( 625 in Europe ).
So no matter how BIG the screen is it is limited by the 'old' nature of TVs.
IF the TV is an HDTV ready with a 1080i capability then you can get up to 1080 "lines" of resolution, but that's still half the resolution of a decent PC monitor/LCD pannel :)

[Matra et Alpine]

i have an iMac G3 with OSX 10.3, getting 10.4 later this week

i found a USB-to-S-Video converter, like $48, im sure one can be found for less, but i havent really look yet

after that it should just be either USB or S-Video cable extensions, found a 50ft USB extension with step up and step down converters for $25

im not buying a new monitor though
oh, Mac, sorry your options arene't as cheap or as varied as PC :)

only j/k !!

Watch out and check the format and the resolution of the USB to S-video convertor. It HAS to be USB 2.0 as 1.1 is cr@p bandwidth to stream video over. Even USB2 can be mediocre for the cheap boxes as they dont' put high quality high performance mpeg->video conversion. So it can end up stuttering and blocky :(

Extend the USB side of the soluton as then you wont' get reduction in analog signal quality over long distances. If you still want to extend the analog side of then look into the simple 2Gb TV "extenders". Ive' one hooked up to second output on cable box to send video signal to daughters PCs :) Real cheap and excellent and no cables to run :)

[Lagonda]

A G3 iMac has USB 1.1. So that's a no go.

Also, if it's an old school CRT then you'll probably be limited to 640x480 or some weird (±)500x300 res which are both unsable. 800x600 is you're lucky but that's really too low as well for OS X.

I won't do this since you'll be stressing you CPU while using the monitor (the USB solution will probably not make any use of your graphics card).

I do not recommend what you are trying to do.

[Godlaus]

I use my TV as a 2nd monitor .. useful for editing videos because you can display the video in TV format on the TV and edit it on your monitor. And I can have MSN on the TV and my work on my monitor.

Having the TV as the second isn't a really good idea, the resolutions is crappy as hell. Good for a giant screen if you stand far back enough, though :D .

[Matra et Alpine]

Having the TV as the second isn't a really good idea, the resolutions is crappy as hell. Good for a giant screen if you stand far back enough, though :D .
Spot his setup Godlaus ....

He uses the TV output to review his video editing adn for displaying the MSN video feeds.

I used to use the same on my old machine.
The quality of the soruce is only TV level anyway so you lose nothing in showing it there :)

[targa]

A G3 iMac has USB 1.1. So that's a no go.i have USB 2.0


Also, if it's an old school CRT then you'll probably be limited to 640x480 or some weird (±)500x300 res which are both unsable. 800x600 is you're lucky but that's really too low as well for OS X.i have the cathode ray monitor, but i run 1024 x 768, and it is still really clear


I won't do this since you'll be stressing you CPU while using the monitor (the USB solution will probably not make any use of your graphics card).im not looking to run streaming video, just use my télé as my comp screen


I do not recommend what you are trying to do.thanks anyway

[Godlaus]

The quality of the soruce is only TV level anyway so you lose nothing in showing it there :)

800X600 on a a 20+ inch screen? My precious eyes will never look at a resolution less than 1280 by 1024 :D

It's my personal preference to have sharper images, so I just use other a bigger monitor rather than a TV. Now, if I had a HDTV, with a comp feed, then we're talking.

[Matra et Alpine]

800X600 on a a 20+ inch screen? My precious eyes will never look at a resolution less than 1280 by 1024 :D

It's my personal preference to have sharper images, so I just use other a bigger monitor rather than a TV. Now, if I had a HDTV, with a comp feed, then we're talking.
current HDTV is at best 1080 lines resolution.
So about the same as that 1280x1024 ( in reality it's ~ 1700x1080 )

You want to wait for UHDV which is 16 TIMES more resolution :)

Resolution: 7,680 × 4,320 pixels.
Frame rate: 60 frame/s.
22.2-channel audio
9 - above ear level
10 - ear level
3 - below ear level
2 - low frequency effects

:drool:

[targa]

current HDTV is at best 1080 lines resolution.
So about the same as that 1280x1024 ( in reality it's ~ 1700x1080 )

You want to wait for UHDV which is 16 TIMES more resolution :)

Resolution: 7,680 × 4,320 pixels.
Frame rate: 60 frame/s.
22.2-channel audio
9 - above ear level
10 - ear level
3 - below ear level
2 - low frequency effects

:drool:thats not drool!

[Lagonda]

i have USB 2.0
How do you have USB 2.0 ? Some sort of FireWire to USB thingy ?
G3 iMacs do NOT have USB 2.0, that's a fact.


i have the cathode ray monitor, but i run 1024 x 768, and it is still really clear
I don't get what you are saying here. The G3 iMac has an internal CRT with a 1024x768 resolution yes, but a television will NOT display real 1024x768.


im not looking to run streaming video, just use my télé as my comp screen
I was not talking about "streaming video". In order to use a USB to video output thing (for lack of a better word) you will need to use CPU power to convert the "screen data" to an analog video signal (ie: "stream"). A G3 will probably not handle this, if it can indeed handle it then the chances of dropped frames would be fairly high while doing other things. All of this because you won't be using your graphics card to drive the TV.

If you are still wiling to try it out, trying doesn't hurt, then be sure that you get a USB to S-video converter with drivers for OSX since I really doubt that OS X will recognize it as a monitor connection (I'm not saying that it won't).

[Matra et Alpine]

I was not talking about "streaming video". In order to use a USB to video output thing (for lack of a better word) you will need to use CPU power to convert the "screen data" to an analog video signal (ie: "stream").
Most of the vidoe/USb "thingies" use MPEG2 and some are MPEG4.
it's digital all the way to the analog conncetor :)
BUT these are usually intended for video production, so I'm not sure how much driver support you find for it being a "monitor".

A G3 will probably not handle this, if it can indeed handle it then the chances of dropped frames would be fairly high while doing other things. All of this because you won't be using your graphics card to drive the TV.
Can the Mac use the hardware accelerators on the onboard graphics to do some of the mpeg conversion ? Some PC cards support this capability.

[Lagonda]

Most of the vidoe/USb "thingies" use MPEG2 and some are MPEG4.
it's digital all the way to the analog conncetor :)
BUT these are usually intended for video production, so I'm not sure how much driver support you find for it being a "monitor".
I guess you mean something like this: http://www.formac.com/p_bin/?cid=solutions_converters_studiodvtv ? AFAIK it is impossible to use the S-video or composite ports on that as a "monitor" connection. These machines use uncompressed DV streams. No compressed MPEG streams.


Can the Mac use the hardware accelerators on the onboard graphics to do some of the mpeg conversion ? Some PC cards support this capability.
Depends on the graphics card, just like on a PC. But I doubt that the iMac's graphics card does this. The most powerful graphics card that ever shipped in a G3 iMac was an ATI RAGE 128 Ultra with 16MB VRAM. The card probably supports MPEG decoding but I really doubt that it does encoding as well. But again, if this would be possible than you would need software that sends this encoded video stream for the graphics card to the USB or FireWire ports...

So targa, I'm afraid that the only way to this is either buy a PowerMac or PowerBook or a newer iMac G4, iBook G4 or eMac (or iMac G5) with a graphics card that supports the Monitor Spanning hack. If you're interested I can compile a little list of machines that can do what you want.