Using a CRT TV instead of a monitor on Win XP?

[Sonja]

Sorry if this is off-topic, but my Win XP box in my living room has a Radeon HD 4870 video card and outputs via s-video cable to a CRT televison.

 

The display always seems to be too red. Whenever a red shape appears on the TV, it seems to bleed, such that there is also red beyond the borders of where the red should be. White people's skin look reddish orange, etc.

 

Is this because I should be using some sort of video card that is intended to output to a CRT television?

 

I tried changing all the settings in Catalyst Control Center, which comes with the video card, but no success. If I reduce reds in any way, suddenly everything else is too blue.

 

Any recommendations on how to set up my hardware to diplay better? Or on a video card that is better suited for my purposes?

Edited April 23, 2009 by Sonja

[cwilkson]

Sorry if this is off-topic, but my Win XP box in my living room has a Radeon HD 4870 video card and outputs via s-video cable to a CRT televison.

 

The display always seems to be too red. Whenever a red shape appears on the TV, it seems to bleed, such that there is also red beyond the borders of where the red should be. White people's skin look reddish orange, etc.

 

Is this because I should be using some sort of video card that is intended to output to a CRT television?

 

I tried changing all the settings in Catalyst Control Center, which comes with the video card, but no success. If I reduce reds in any way, suddenly everything else is too blue.

 

Any recommendations on how to set up my hardware to diplay better? Or on a video card that is better suited for my purposes?

You have too much blue too. Looks like your saturation is too high. If changing that in Catalyst doesn't help then try reducing the "color" control on your TV.

 

What do other devices (VCR, DVD, Playstation, whatever) look like when connected to this TV? Do you get the same color bleed?

[Stephen Moss]

Assuming your CRT TV displays images from other sources without the colour bleed and that it has a S-Video input and you are connecting to that then (not that I am a PC expert) I don't see why there shoud be a problem with using the card you have, if you can find a video card that produce an RF output then you could try that however I doubt it will make any difference because I think the problem is that at 65535 available colours the PC can output more colours than the eye can notice.

I am not sure about the "turn your lights out" image as I don't know what the original image looked like but in the image with the "white" background it is possible that the white is not exactly white, there may be a little more red in it than there should be for a true white, this is unnoticed by the eye on a monitor that is designed specifically for displaying the digital output from the PC as the difference is small enough for it to still look white but the conversion to s-video may result in slightly more red and thus a noticeble tint to what should be a pure white colour. This combined with the fact that TV's, espically CRT TV's were not designed to display 65535 colours may increase the tint even more at it tries its best to match the colours hense you will probably have to put up with it.

It would be interesting to try it on a modern High definition LDC TV as they are more like monitors than traditional TV's these days and may cope better.

[Ian Primus]

This combined with the fact that TV's, espically CRT TV's were not designed to display 65535 colours

 

Huh? CRT TV sets _are_ designed to display all colors. That's what they do. Remember, television signal is ANALOG - there is no, nor was there ever, a limit to how many colors a (color) set can display.

 

Televisions are not, however, designed to be computer monitors. The effective resolution you're going to get out of them isn't going to be great, the edges might not be clean sharp lines, and the lack of precise HV regulation means the picture is going to change size slightly as the picture changes from light to dark. But you shouldn't get color bleed.

 

I would fiddle with the controls for the output of your TV card, and the color control on the television. I agree with cwilkson, it sounds like the saturation is up too far.

 

Test other sources on the S-video input, and see if they produce the same problems. Ideally, use a DVD player conneted to the s-video connector, playing a DVD - then put the DVD in the computer, connect the computer to the same s-video connector, and compare the picture.

 

Another thing that can cause picture ghosting is poor quality, overly long, or damaged cables. Try another S-video cable. Just for grins, try composite if your card offers it.

 

-Ian

[Rybags]

+1 reduce the saturation.

 

ATI cards tend to be better with TV-out than nVidia, so you're not really going to gain improvement by changing brands.