HTPC basics

[Ozone77]

Ok, so I am new at this and I need some help.

Unfortuantelly, the stickies are as good as dead, so I have a bunch of noob questions.

Like many people, i am trying to use old hardware: a 2.8GHz P4, 1GB RAM in a shuttle case (SB61 or something like that). My videocard is a 9800 XT (for gaming at the time), but I cant get decent output. I used the "out adapter" that came with the card and tried both, S-VGA, and composite (that yellow coax).

Who has time to write a how to or point me in the direction of a "current" FAQ to connect a video card to an HDTV?

Secondly, I have a spare PCI slot (the only one in the tiny shuttle), that I would like to use for a tuner card. I have read this issue has been "beaten to death" in fact, it has been beaten so much that I can't even find the corpse of a decent thread. So, where do I get info on current tuner hardware?

Thanks, and please don't flame me.

 

[hoffstetter]

hook up another monitor at the same time as the tv and play with the resolutions. also there's an hdtv timing option in the ati control panel somewhere that will help with timing.

What kind of tv do you have?
if you have an lcd or plasma tv then I think you should be able to just set the res to the tv's native res but if its a dlp or some other rear projection it might take some tinkering to get it all on the screen.

Are you not getting anything at all on the screen? or is it just not fitting on the screen right?

 

[Ozone77]

I'll try both at the same time...

This will end up in a 1080i Plasma, but I am playing around/setting up in a 720p LCD.

Short story (Plasma)
The image is horrible, I think i was pushing 1024x7XX instead of 12XXx1024 (closer to 1080). I could hardly read any text in windows. Also, It was not "widescreen" I had to scroll sideways, so I may have lowered the res even more.

Long story (LCD issues):
I used a VGA to VGA and it works fine, so I set-up Ubuntu to 1024x7XX.
Using AV/S-video, sometimes I will get nothing (like the TV does not think the signal is data). and sometimes I'll get "underwater" image, like the signal is not right. Then Ubuntu loads and the screen goes black.
I used a DVI (radeon) to VGA (LCD) cable and get perfect bios screen, but then Ubuntu starts up and all goes to black again.