Help with ATI Radeon 9600XT TV-Out

[DexterLB]

I have an ATI Radeon 9600XT video card. My monitor is connected to the DVI output. There are also VGA output and a 9-pin S-VIDEO (MINI DIN-9)

I want to connect it to my telly which has a component YPrPb input and a composite input. As according to this page the 9-pin connector has a composite output I decided to buy a MINI DIN-9 to composite cable. It was chinese and it didn't work because the ground wasn't connected at all and the signal was connected to a wrong pin. So I took the MINI DIN-9 connector from the chinese cable, a composite yellow male connector and a 6m coaxial cable and connected it as shown on the page I linked to above (the middle rod of the composite connector to pin 8 of the MINI DIN and the GND of the composite connector to the MINI-DIN's pin 3 (Yes I see this is a female pinout and I have connected the ground to the MIRROR side of the male connector, e.g. the same side looking at the pins from the back side )

And I measured it with a multimeter, all right. But it doesn't work - blue screen and telly says no signal. Tested it with two tellys
Maybe this videocard has another pinout?
If I have enough time tommorrow I'll test if there is any signal that looks like composite on any of the pins (There should be a chromitance, luminance and composite outputs) with my Tek 2465A oscilloscope...

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

To be honest, I've NEVER managed to get TV output working on various different cards, and have always given up.

It's probable that you will see nothing at all on the TV outputs, as they aren't usually active unless there's a 75 ohm load present.

 

[DexterLB]

75Ω between which and which pin? The S-VIDEO ones? Or the composite one will work? If it's the latter I may try adding, for example, a 210Ω for compensating the long cable, or if the former a 75Ω resistor on the pins needed...

On my NVidia MX-440 with a 4-pin s-video the cable was twice longer but worked perfectly though

P.S. w00t post number begins with 8051, lucky number, good processor

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

Try the composite one, which is probably the same as one of the S-Video anyway.

 

[DexterLB]

No resistance at all (∞Ω) on the telly input. I'll try adding a resistor to the composite...

EDIT: I hadn't measured correctly. There is 75Ω present on the composite

so, now what? :S

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

Do you get any signal out when feeding a 75 ohm load?.

My experience over the years was that it worked fine as the computer booted up, displaying the DOS commands, but as soon as Windows fired up all outoput from the AV outputs ceased.

I spent months on forums and emailing technical support, but never managed to get one to work.

What are you actually wanting to do?, I presume you know that the quality via a TV will be absolutely dreadful, OK for watching poor quality DVD's, but useless as a monitor.

 

[Sceadwian]

The video card comes with a breakout adapter cable for doing this, you should have one. It's a DIN connector on one side and the other end is a wide puck like thing that has the cable connections for svideo/composite etc.. The video card has some way to detect when it's plugged into a TV (I'm not sure the method it uses is) and it won't output a signal until it detects a device. It will not by default output a signal so you also have to make sure you have the TV output on, or you're gonna be measuring nothing.
If you're gonna stick with the homebuilt connector, at least make sure that you have all the grounds tied in common, that might help with the cards TV detection.

 

[Sceadwian]

Actually Nigel, especially first person shooters, you'd be surprised how good they look if you have a large TV. For a second monitor for general use though they are just about useless though.

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

Actually Nigel, especially first person shooters, you'd be surprised how good they look if you have a large TV.

At least we have 576 lines, you only have 480 lines - and at 576 the resolution is appaling for computer use - you have to increase text size massively to make it readable (and it's not great then).

 

[Sceadwian]

I know we got jipped in the TV department. Thank goodness for the new HD standards though. Now we all get the same great aliasing and compression artifacts =P At least with lower rez TV's I wasn't able to see that kind of crap. Watching a bad HDTV broadcast is almost painful to me, my eyes almost bug out of my sockets hunting down all the artifacts. The nice thing I like about HDTV's is they can be used as super large high rez PC monitors, and a good well done HD broadcast or well encoded blueray look absolutely breathtaking.

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

I know we got jipped in the TV department. Thank goodness for the new HD standards though. Now we all get the same great aliasing and compression artifacts =P

It's certainly better now, although it's still 50Hz and 60Hz.

The nice thing I like about HDTV's is they can be used as super large high rez PC monitors.

Not really, it's not particularly high res, nothing like a real monitor - but acceptable for distant viewing.

 

[blueroomelectronics]

I would think 1920 x 1080 is pretty hires.

 

[Sceadwian]

My 20 inch LCD is only 1440x900. 1080P TV's are as blueroom said, 1920x1080, all viewable. A large LCD 'monitor' is likely going to be much higher resolution, where with an HD TV I get plenty of useable resolution (slightly more than my existing monitor) and much larger overall field of view. When I am in the market for one the choices and features avaiable now for the price are incredible, compared to only 2-3 years ago.

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

I would think 1920 x 1080 is pretty hires.

Might be on a 14 inch monitor, but not on a 50 inch one

 

[blueroomelectronics]

Well you're not going to put a 50" monitor right in front of your face. Well most sensible folks wont.

 

[Sceadwian]

I wouldn't use a 50 inch TV for a PC anyways, I was thinking more along the line of the inexpensive 30-40 inch widescreens that you can get now. You wouldn't want much more resolution on a screen that large anyways, the human eye wouldn't be able to practically see the difference in the pixels, at any appreciable distance.

 

[blueroomelectronics]

Notice cleartype can make text look better on an LCD.

 

[Sceadwian]

Cleartype is veryyyyyyyy nice. Anyone using a version of windows that supports it should make sure it's on if they have an LCD/LED or plasma display source.