Computer Videos on TV

wessleym

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What is the best way to get my computer videos to play on my tv without using my tv-out on my graphics card? I was thinking of a way to network my PC with some kind of machine in my living room that would play into my tv. I know you can do it with a modded Xbox, but I want to stay on the good side of the law. You're supposed to be able to copy videos on to your Xbox and play them with the Xbox Media Player. And I don't mean I want to put the image of my computer (with the mouse and stuff) on the tv either, just the movies. Thanks.
 
The Kiss DP500 is the solution for you. You can connect it to the pc, throw in a burned cd, or stream it directly off the internet.
 
Uh, I think that link was broken. Does anyone else have a good product I could use? Thanks.

Edit: Nevermind. It works now. Does anyone else have other products? I'm trying to find a bunch so I can compare. Thanks.
 
I noticed I was getting a lot of views but few replies, so to clarify what I was talking about in the first post, here's a better explanation:
What is a product I could buy that would allow me to copy my videos and music to a hard drive built into a unit that would play this media on my TV? I know you can do it with TV-out, but the quality stinks. I know you can do it with a modded Xbox, but I want to stay on the right side of the law. So I'd like to have a set-top box that would be networked with my computer so I could transfer media to its hard drive. From the hard drive, I'd like it to output the video into my home theater system with component video and digital audio, but any output type would be fine. Thanks.
 
Originally posted by wessleym
I know you can do it with TV-out, but the quality stinks.
says who? using s-video, the quality is going to look about as good as it ever will using the same video files. using tv-out doesn't really degrade quality, it's just hard to read text on the desktop and everything because it's a tv displaying it and not a monitor.

i watch 700mb divx movies with s-video out of an old gf2 and the quality is better than vhs, i would say. what keeps it from being dvd quality is merely the compression of the file.
 
Mine looks horrible. The colors are surprisingly bad. Is there a way to tune the thing?
 
Originally posted by wessleym
Mine looks horrible. The colors are surprisingly bad. Is there a way to tune the thing?
hmm.. don't know why your colors would be way off.

but you can go into your display properties (color correction) and find the brightness, contrast, and gamma settings. maybe use a video calibration dvd or software to get the colors truly right.
 
look at the output on ur display properties for the tv out and make sure it is set to ntsc and s-video out
 
Originally posted by wessleym
Mine looks horrible. The colors are surprisingly bad. Is there a way to tune the thing?
Because you use NTSC (Never The Same Colour)? :D

But since you should you may have accidentaly set it to PAL or something. That usually screws up the colours.
 
Why not just burn them to Video CD format and paly them in your DVD player? I do that sometimes when my butt is numb from sitting in the desk chair too long. The result is usually better looking than what shows up on my computer monitor (don't ask me why). Nero supports this capability.

On the other hand if you are downloading movies off the web expect the sound, colors, contrast and intensity to be pretty bad. The files are under sampled and use lossy formats to keep their size down. Not to mention many come from web cam's stuffed under someones coat in a movie theatre.
 
Originally posted by LeeJend
The result is usually better looking than what shows up on my computer monitor (don't ask me why).
that's cuz monitors display a ton more detail than a tv screen and so the flaws are much more noticeable.
 
I am and Computer to TV fanatic due to all the Anime I download and like to watch in my home theater rather than my computer room. What I use are Radio Shacks 2.4 GHz Wireless Video Sender and receiver. These things are great! I get prefect reception (unless someone turns on the Microwave) And I use s-video. Depending on what Video card you have, they usually have an option to set what output you use, Auto, Analog, or s-video.. Set it to s-video and you will see a big difference. Now with what you are looking for, some device with a HD that you can connect to your TV, it probably going to run you at least 700 bucks (if you can find something like that, TiVO and such maybe). These small receivers that you can set up are a bit spendy (about 70 bucks for 1 receiver and 1 sender) But for me was worth it. They do have a limited range.. I had to buy 2 receivers and 2 senders to get to my room.. but its great to watch in as clear quality as on my LCD monitor. Also.. the output quality does also depend on your 3d card. But anyways, I recommend going to radio shack and trying theses out.. if you don't like em you can just take them back. But I for one am pleased. Hope this helps!

Also want to point out.. the icons and text on computer to tv are usualy not that good.. but once you go full screen with video, you can't tell a difference except that avi's mpg's mov's and such do use compression so don't expect DVD Digital quality on the TV, more like VHS :)
 

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