Using PC as DVD player for TV

[Koopsta Knicca]

Heya guys,

My PS2 just broke, which is my sole DVD player for the T.V.

I bought a DVD burner a while back, so I was thinking of just using this as my DVD player for the time being...

I've got an ATI Radeon 9800 and I wanna connect it to the TV. My PC is about 20 feet away from the T.V. and I don't wanna move it closer. The card came with some cables, but they're too short.

The cables that came with it are S-Video to S-Video, and S-video to regular A/V plugs.

My question is, where can I get longer S-Video-to-S-Video cables? As for the sound, what cable do I need to run from the soundcard to the TV? I'm a newbie at this sort of thing.

And has anyone experience the quality of using a PC as a DVD player for the T.V.? How's the quality, compared to a regular DVD player? I was just gonna use Windows Media Player to play the DVD movies.

[Terminator]

Firstly you will get degradation of signal the further the way the TV is... You will need Good shielded extention leads to maintain quality.

I do sometimes play my DVD's through my SVHS into my TV but the quality is not as good as playing the DVD directly from the DVD player.
Mainly this is because I'm using a Nvidia Ti4600 to output (don't think your ATi will make a difference) which will only go at 800x600 ..more specically at 60Hz although my JVC will handle a 75Hz input.

In answer to your question .. run it from the DVD player to the TV..... If you run it from the computer you'll very likey see jutter because of the frequency difference.... but I've noticed after a while it does not matter and you will not get headaches watching it but you WILL NOT see the DVD at the res it CAN run at because you are limited by the the res given out by the computer.
Even with good shielded cabling you will NOT see it as good as playing it through a direct DVD player


Hope this answers your question

T

[Koopsta Knicca]

Can you recommend me with a good cable? I don't know what they're called, so I'm having a hard time looking through some cables online.

[Billforce]

I had a 25 ft. cable made because I couldn't buy one off the shelf. Most electronic shops can make one for you.

[Koopsta Knicca]

Ok, guys, I did some research and just for future reference:

S-Video to S-Video cable:

http://www.pccables.com/cgi-bin/orde...les.com&rcode=


Take one of these and plug it into the Line-Out of your soundcard:

http://www.pccables.com/cgi-bin/orde...les.com&rcode=

Then take one of these attach it to the other end of the cable and then into your receiver:

http://www.pccables.com/cgi-bin/orde...les.com&rcode=

[justinstyle]

Koopsta, you're probably going to have problems with that unless you have an home theater reciever/amp to "boost" the signal from your sound card. The wattage that is provided by your sound card is only enought to power a set of headphones, anything bigger than that and you will have very bad sound (without an amp). You will more than likely not even be able to hear the audio if you simply plug those connections into the TV especially after 20ft. of low watt signal attenuation. I tried hooking straight to the TV and found out after much head scratching that the signal is just too weak without being amplified, hope this saves you some scratching.

I have my setup as follows,
ATI AIW 9600 S-video output to my TV on Video 2 channel (I change my PC to 768x1024 when I'm watching on the TV).

Santa Cruz Turtle Beach sound card with the "line out" (I actually use the Versa-Jack, same thing) connected to my Home theater reciever's Video 2 input jacks.

Mine works great with this setup, the video is not 100% but it is close, I have had many people over to watch and they never knew it was coming from the PC until I told them.

Good luck!

[Koopsta Knicca]

Ok, what do I need to do in order to amplify the sound?

I have a Turtle Beach Santa Cruz sound card as well!

[justinstyle]

If you have a home theater/stereo reciever simply plug in to an aux. input. If you do not have a home theater setup I guess your second option would be to use a PC sound system (they have amps built in to most PC speaker systems).

For future reference here is a real generic breakdown of home theater hook-up from Microsoft.

Good luck!

[justinstyle]

Sorry!

For future reference here is a generic breakdown of home theater hook-up from Microsoft

[Terminator]

If it's important for you to play DVD's etc through the TV then all you need to do is hook it up to a normal stereo amplifier. Normally involves using a 3.5mm/RCA lead and running and RCA/RCA lead to you TV.
Personally I don't do this as my computer is close to the Tv and I get better sound through my 5.1 speakers.

Your SVHS extension will also suffer from degredation due to the distance and amps for this are more expensive.

Best of luck.

T

[RayH]

For the price of the cables, you can get an all region DVD player for the TV.

[Koopsta Knicca]

Ok, guys, just got my cable.

Now another question. It seems to see the TV as my 2nd monitor and I gotta drag the stuff across the screen in order to see it.

Is there a way for it to just "copy" what's goin on in my monitor?

I got an ATI Radeon 9800.

[Koopsta Knicca]

Ok, I fixed it, but whenever I play a video, nothing comes out. Like an .mpg file or something. The part where it shows the video is black.

[RamonGTP]

You probably need to set your TV up as your primary display. This would probably lead to video's playing only on the tv however and not the monitor.

[Koopsta Knicca]

Ah ok, I'll just buy a wireless mouse, then. I'll control it from my living room, which is 20 feet away from the PC.