One minor victory

[telophase]

The TiVo is not yet set up, because after getting lost on the way to CompUSA and barely getting there in time before it closed to get my USB/Ethernet adaptor - which involved also seeing two restaurants on fire within a mile of each other - I needed a lot of time to sit down, eat dinner, and concentrate on not exploding with stress.

But I jsut hooked up the new RCA switch. The Radio Shack salesguy sold me up to the $40 model from the $20 one I was thinking of by pointing out that it automagically sensed which component was turned on and switched between them without me having to get up, go across the room, and press a button. Which sounded good - if I'm at the computer and doing art while watching a DVD, it's a hassle to have to get up, weave trhough all the furniture in the way, and press a button to go back to the TV.

So I just set it up. OMG it works! Wow! SO WORTH $20 EXTRA.


And now, to eyeball the TiVo and all the various components...

Comments

[octopedingenue]

Use your techie skills to get my computer to play videos on my TV screen! Because I have to crane my neck to the right to watch anime on my monitor from bed, and it is very sad.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

From what I understand, this involves some sort of video card that has a connection where you can plug in a TV cable. :D

[telophase.livejournal.com]

toby: something like this would let her dump any standard video card's output to a TV
toby: http://cgi.ebay.com/VGA-to-TV-CONVERTER-S-VIDEO-RCA-CABLE-ADAPTER-NEW_W0QQitemZ160053133429QQcmdZViewItem
toby: and she could get a VGA splitter so her monitor could always be hooked up
toby: but -
toby: splitting a signal like that introduces some quality loss
toby4: maybe not enough for her to care, but it'll be there


So if your card has a TV-Out place to plug that thing in, you should be able to hook them together.

[octopedingenue]

Thank you, toby! Unfortunately, it doesn't look like my computer has the TV-Out hookup (here's my computer, with ports). You have to install a new video card to get the hookup, right? So it's probably not worth the cost / installation hassle for me at the moment. Which sucks, because my TV is a new model and has an S-Video input in addition to the red/white/yellow video/audio hookups. Thank you both for the help, though!

[telophase.livejournal.com]

I've emailed him to double-check, but I think I was misleading when I said "f your card has a TV-Out place to plug that thing in" because that thing has a plug that fits directly into the VGA monitor port on your computer - the one you plug your monitor into. It depends if the card has the capability to support TV-Out or not, and hopefully Toby can tell us. :D

[telophase.livejournal.com]

He replies:

Well according to the Specs page (linked off of that one), it will support video out. But that's the funny thing with on-board items like that - the system builder (in this case, the motherboard manufacturer, but Gateway could've asked for it this way) doesn't always include everything as a way to cut costs.

By default her machine has no video out aside from the VGA port. So she could still do the VGA -> S-Video converter to dump the output to the TV. But there's a couple gotchas:

- The max resolution (pixels) that would work is 1024x768. That's according to the specs page for the video card. But given that she wouldn't be using an S-Video port straight from the video card, she may only be able to do 800x600.

- Using a VGA splitter to keep her monitor hooked up means she'd have the same signal on the monitor and the TV. Not a big deal til you realize the monitor will need to be at the same resolution used for the TV. If 800x600 or 1024x768 isn't to her liking, it'll have to be changed whenever she wants the output to go to the TV.
And again I have to mention that splitting = quality loss.

- Don't expect text to be readable on the TV unless you crank the font size WAY up. The only time I hook my laptop up to a TV is so me and some friends can play old arcade games using my USB gamepads. For that, we don't need super-fine detail. Normal PC use on a TV isn't too great, but if she's wanting this to watch DVDs, torrents, etc. then no prob.

I asked: what about subtitles? He replied:

If they're large enough, they should be fine. If they're encoded as part of the video, then obviously the size can't be changed. If she gets them like you did with the FF7AC parody ones, the size could be adjusted as necessary.

Best bet would be to set the resolution to 640x480. Like Sancho said on the CV list this morning - it's the closest to actual TV resolution, and will make everything more legible while still allowing you to watch stuff on a screen larger than your monitor.

For $3 (converter) plus the cost of an S-Video cable (probably $10 for a 6' one), I'd say it's worth a shot.

[heyoka.livejournal.com]

Two restaurants on fire? At the same time? Freaky.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

Yup. My first thought was that it was some sort of Christmas fireman donation thing, but there weren't very many cars at either restaurant, and the firemen looked like they were actually working, and there were no signs explaining where to leave your donation. Nothing too serious was happening on the outside at any rate - I didn't see any flames or anything, so probably just small kitchen fires or something. But still.