NLC-Is it poss for a normalTV to act as a monitor via Scart?

Michael · Post by **Michael** » Sat Feb 10, 2007 11:26 pm

As above.

Would like to view stuff from pc on telly basically...Im sure someones cracked it!

The_Rossatron · Post by **The_Rossatron** » Sun Feb 11, 2007 3:21 am

Yes. Buy you'll get a pretty shan picture unless you're wanting to play old school games like Doom on it

. and probably won't be able to read any text.

http://www.tkk.fi/Misc/Electronics/circuits/vga2tv/

robin · Post by **robin** » Sun Feb 11, 2007 10:28 am

Maplin (down the Gorgy road) sell a box that does this I am 99% sure from stock. Give them a call.

But the picture will only be good for movies/games (in fact it's exactly the same as watching a movie over broadcast digital) - normal desktop even at 640x480 will be mostly useless due to interlace and lack of vertical resolution.

Cheers,
Robin

GregR · Post by **GregR** » Sun Feb 11, 2007 10:43 am

if you've got a nice shiny new lcd tv like my Samsung, you'll not have the resolution issues - there's even a 'monitor' plug on the back for just that like the kind you find on your pc types

Michael · Post by **Michael** » Sun Feb 11, 2007 11:45 pm

Sweet...okay....I'll give it a try!! Cheers!

robin · Post by **robin** » Mon Feb 12, 2007 9:58 am

GregR wrote:if you've got a nice shiny new lcd tv like my Samsung, you'll not have the resolution issues - there's even a 'monitor' plug on the back for just that like the kind you find on your pc types

You *will* have the issue no matter how good your TV if you are running over the SCART/composite video/S-video interface - it only has 625 vertical lines (interlaced, i.e. it transmit 312.5 in one frame and 312.5 in the other frame) refreshed at effectively 25 frames per second. It matters not a jot whether your laptop is set to 1024x768 and your TV is mega-super-duper LCD, you don't get more than 625 vertical lines over the standard interface; effective vertical resolution looks more like 320 than 620 because of the interlace.

If you have some fancy digital multi-sync input to take video straight from a computer, fair enough, but otherwise it won't ever be any better than that.

Cheers,
Robin

Alan · Post by **Alan** » Mon Feb 12, 2007 2:28 pm

Sorry not clued up with this sort of thing.

So movies playing on the laptop connected to VGA port on the back of an LCD wouldn't produce the same play back quality when played on the laptop?

robin · Post by **robin** » Mon Feb 12, 2007 5:44 pm

You need to understand the difference between a multi-sync LCD like the one your average PC comes with and like the one that's built into a laptop vs a television that happens to be built on top of an LCD.

Multi-sync means that the display learns the geometry of the signal by looking at the horizontal and vertical clock rates.

Televisions don't multi-sync - there are standards (different in different countries) that define the number of lines on a display, the refresh rate, whether or not interlace is used and how colour is encoded; all analogue broadcast television, plus video recorders, DVD players, playstations, etc., transmit their video signal using this standard. Digital television broadcast standards allow alternate formats, though in practice they are I think still using the same basic setup to allow you to view on a standard analogue TV?

To answer your question, it depends only on the quality and capabilities of the LCD as in both cases you are running through a multi-sync interface.

Cheers,
Robin