TV as a second monitor

  • Thread starter Thread starter Todd
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Todd

I have installed the All-In-Wonder 9000 pro, and I am
trying to use my TV as a second monitor. I have attached
my ati input adptor to my card and have linked it to my
TV with an S-Video cord. My problem is that Windows will
not allow me to "Extend my windows desktop onto this
monitor". I check the box and click apply, but nothing
happens and the box unticks itself. All the instructions
that I have tell me to do this step and windows will not
allow me to continue past this point. HELP!!!
 
You may not be able to accomplish that. Generally tv's are meant to be used
as primary monitors for presentations or DVDs (most dvds won't even display
on a secondary monitor). TVs make crappy computer monitors. Even if you got
it working, you wouldn't be able to read anything clearly. Read my
following response to an earlier post...

TVs (Except for HDTV versions) are not capable of high enough resolution to
make computer images look decent. At best they only have 480 lines of
vertical resolution and most have even fewer (330 or 220). Compare that to
a standard monitor resolution of 800x600 or 1024x768 and you see that TVs
are very low resolution screens. When you use the S-Video plug, your card
and/or your TV are having to downconvert the image into a low enough
resolution to be displayed. This means that approximately every 3rd, 4th,
or 5th line of resolution is taken out of the picture. What you are left
with is a very blurry low-resolution image on the TV screen.

HDTV has a common resolution of 1920x1080 - quite a bit higher than your
average computer, so they can actually be used as decent computer monitors.
However, your image still won't be as clear as it would on an actual
computer monitor because HDTV uses interlaced images while computers use
progressive scan images.
To simplify that as best I know how - Interlaced images are only half the
picture. The first frame will be lines 1,3,5,7,9, etc of the image and frame
2 will be lines 2,4,6,8, etc. Progressive images are all sent at once. The
first progressive frame contains lines 1,2,3,4,5, etc of resolution.
Therefore, Progressive images are far better because you get a higher frame
rate...In the amount of time it takes to get 60 progressive images, you have
only gotten 30 interlaced images.
 
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