watch PC films on your TV! (ATI Radeon VE Dual Display Edition)

Member Name: pipefish

Product:	ATI Radeon VE Dual Display Edition
Date:	03/07/03 (2864 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Can play trailers and movies in all formats on TV, no need to sit in spare room in front of monitor, good picture quality

Disadvantages: Tricky to get started with, Cables to tidy up afterwards, Poor text quality on TV-Out

I bought an OEM ATI Radeon VE (StLabs 64Mb 4xAGP TVOut), mainly for the purposes of being able to connect the computer up to the TV and so watch DVDs and films on the TV while running them from the computer, fed up of having to watch them in the spare room on the PC screen.

I've had the card for about 6 months now and I've found it very good running under both Windows XP and 98SE. The basic spec of the card is 64Mb SDRam memory, and it has outputs for VGA (for the monitor), SVideo or RGB TV-out.
Computer-wise it runs very well and can handle Quake 3 smoothly although I do not use it generally for graphics or games, more for the TV-Out functions. It has had no problems and does not generate any significant noise or heat. It is fine for general word processing, internet usage, photo and spreadsheet work.
Looking on the web for info generally the ATi cards got favourable opinions on their TV out features and quality - there are Ge-Force TV-Out cards too but I saw so many different OEM GeForce graphics cards, some with TV out and others not and others not with dual display, that it was too hard to tell which ones would be suitable. Therefore I decided to go for ATi.

The installation drivers for the card were installed without any problems - basically you install the drivers and another utility called ATi Hydravision which controls all the display settings and switching the output between TV, monitor or both. The ATi VE importantly allows you to output simulataneously to a monitor and a TV at once - this is vital when setting up and your TV and computer are in seperate rooms as otherwise you will spend time running between the rooms to try and select options to set up the display and selecting menu items and buttons.
ATi cards basically are numbered in versions 7000, 7500 or VE (same thing), 8000, 8500 and so on - the cards from VE onwards have Hydravision on them so are capable of dual display.

Basically the TV display is c
ontrolled by accessing the refresh rate and col
our settings tab on your computer (Display properties, Settings) and then the Advanced button takes you to a raft of options for the ATI VE (OpenGL settings, Direct3D settings, refresh rate, flip the display, colour profiles, font sizes etc) - one which includes switching the output between TV and monitor (TIP: make the TV the primary display here if watching on the TV or sometimes the films will not show on the TV). If the connections are in place you have simple graphical options here for monitor on/off and TV on/off, toggle primary display or to show the same view as on other device. You can have both TV and monitor on at once.
The TV output is very good - the display and films are certainly at TV quality. I found my TV could not handle SVHS input and only showed the picture in black and white so I had to use RGB instead.
However as with most TV Out graphics cards the text quality on a TV screen is terrible and certainly would not be suitable for word processing or other activities - basically the TV does not have the sharpness, resolution or refresh rate of a monitor so has no chance of competing here. It can even be difficult to read text on the TV screen.

To connect the TV and PC there are many useful links on the web, do a search for PC To TV.


YOU WILL NEED:
- a TV with a spare SCART socket
- some cables for the sound and video connections from the PC to the TV
- a SCART convertor
this is basically a SCART connector with 3 plugs on the back - two phono sound inputs and one RGB (phono) input, some also have a SVHS input plug and an input/output switch - set this to input.
FOR THE SOUND
- twin phono cable (same as the interconnects on your hifi)
- speaker double adaptor
the double adaptor basically plugs into the back of your sound card or pc speaker and has two raised sockets on the back for plugging two phono cables in (left and right), plug the
other 2 ends into the SCART convertor. Don't buy
the one with 3.5mm plugs on the back that look like headphone sockets - you need the raised plugs on the back for phono leads (look at the back of your hifi amplifier to see what they look like).
FOR THE PICTURE
(A) RGB
- single phono lead, plug from TV out on graphics card into back of SCART convertor on TV
or (B) SVHS
- SVHS lead and SVHS to RCA (ie phono) convertor
basically these are 4 pin plugs similar to the mouse and keyboard PS2 plugs, the convertor then plugs into the SVHS lead and then into the phono lead on the SCART convertor. If your SCART convertor already has a SVHS input (4 pin circular plug) you do not need to SVHS RCA convertor.

Generally some TVs are capable of displaying SVHS pictures and others not - as the SVHS signal is carried as black and white with colour as extra information on the top some TVs are not capable of picking up the colour information and so you will only get a black and white picture. There is generally no way of knowing this until you try - if the picture is monochrome you will then need to use RGB and the phono lead instead for the picture.
The SVHS picture is better though it you can get it.
If your TV does not have a spare SCART socket get a SCART switcher (about £10 from Argos) to add more SCART bays and save having to pull in and out leads to swap them around.

Generally this equipment costs about £25 at a computer fair, PC World now sell it as a complete kit at a premium - this is what it generally costs at a fair:
SCART convertor: c £10
10m twin phono (RCA) lead: £5 for the sound
10m phono (RCA) lead: £3 for RGB video
10m SVHS lead and SVHS-RCA convertor: £15 for SVHS video
3.5mm (headphone jack) male to 2 phono adaptor :£1 doubler adaptor for sound

If your TV is further or nearer you will obviously need different
length leads, usually 5m or 15m leads are available inst
ead of 10m. SVHS leads are expensive and longer leads cost a lot. If you are using RGB only it may be cheaper to get a 3-lead RCA/phono set.

The Radeon VE is about £50-£80 depending on what graphics card manufacturer you are buying from and where you buy it - as far as I know all of them use ATi's drivers though.

You will also need a mouse extension lead to be able to control the PC from in front of your TV, you can get these up to 5m but after this the mouse signal is much less effective so it is not recommended to go much further.
If you do not have a spare SCART lead on the TV buy a SCART switching box to allow extra connections and save having to swap round SCART cables (about £10 from Argos).

Hopefully this has not got too tekky, it really is simple to use once set up - basically switch off both TV and PC and connect it up, then boot computer and turn on TV and use the Hydravision settings to switch the output to the TV. When finished switch the output back to the PC only and you can unplug the leads and switch off the TV and carry on working with the PC.
However I would certainly recommend it - after a few uses it becomes second nature to set up. It is great to be able to watch video and DIVx trailers etc on the TV and not the spare room or bedroom hunched in front of the monitor whilst a DVD is whirring away noisily. Add this to the fact that hardly any DVD players can play DIVX or other video formats and it is even better.

Overall an excellent card for both graphics and TV display.

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