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[arevee]

Folks,

I use my MSI-MEGA 180 system with a sony KDP51WS550 51" HDTV widescreen. I use S-video to output video from the PC to the TV. 

I am not sure what this means but the MSI PC has "Integrated nForce2 (8X AGP)"/"nVIDIA nForce2 (Crush 18G) + MCP2T Chipset ". All I know is that its the graphics card.

Here's my problem: The video output on the TV is real bad. The display settings have just 2 options- 800x600 and 1024x768 and neither of them look good. Its very hard to read text/browse the net/ select media and stuff. I have already installed the latest drivers.

1. Do I need to get a better video card?
2. Is there anything I can do to make this v-card perform better.

[JimH]

One of the options for video is text size.  That may help.

[Matt]

S-Video doesn't have the bandwidth to carry an HD signal.

You need a component, DVI, or VGA connection from the computer to the TV.  Your options depend on the video card outputs and TV inputs.

[arevee]

Well, the PC output is not HD. The TV is HD capable.

I do not have component -out/DVI-out  from the PC and I do not have VGA-in on my TV.

So I guess, I need to get a video card that has component-out/DVI-out and install that in my media PC and then connect it to my TV??

S-Video doesn't have the bandwidth to carry an HD signal.

You need a component, DVI, or VGA connection from the computer to the TV.  Your options depend on the video card outputs and TV inputs.

[Alex B]

Your Sony is not like a 51" PC monitor (a big plasma or LCD screen would be more like that). It is still a projection TV, albeit a very advanced one.

Since it has a digital DVI connector you could consider buying a video card with that connector. It would make the image a bit better. DVI connector is almost standard in all newer cards.

[arevee]

Would something like this work also??

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=3697&item=5186635325&rd=1

[Alex B]

A high quality AD converter is expensive. I don't think that is it.

I have good experiences with ATI Radeon 9600. It is a two-year-old model and can be found cheap.

e.g. http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=40158&item=5185955386&rd=1#ebayphotohosting

[glynor]

I also had great luck with my two ATI 9600 XT Cards (one of which was the AIW version), until I just recently upgraded to the X800XL and AIW X800XT.   

[arevee]

I guess 128MB is good enough..??

[Alex B]

The memory amount doesn't matter. Only 3D games can make any use of big amounts of display memory. More important is the quality of video output and driver usability.

[Mangy Varmit]

I'll piggy-back onto this thread a bit.

My small 26" widescreen HDTV is fine when using MC11 in Theatre View, but the Windows desktop is only usable/readable at 640x480. This is using the S-video out on my older GeForce2 Pro card (supposedly better TV out than newer vid cards per av forums).

Question: my HDTV has component-in and HDMI-in, but no DVI-in. If I used my Radeon 9800 Pro video card with DVI-out, would a DVI to HDMI converter be worth it in terms of picture quality?

I'm not using MC to watch dvd's, just home videos mostly. I have a dedicated DVD player for that.