Edit: New questions-TV out, blurry text, lopsided screen, etc.

[hypernova]

Disregard what was said earlier.  Got it working.

Now that I've got things set up and working, there are a few kinks I need to work out.  I've used the tv out on my Radeon card (9600 series) with a JVC 27530 (the most recommended tv lately) and some things are screwed up.  Yeah, some of these questions would go in another forum, but for sanity's sake, I'll keep them all together, and this forum gets the most exposure anyway.

1.  The boot up image and Windows loading screens are scrolling/flipping on the tv.  Any workaround to this?  Once windows is completely loaded, everything's fine.

2.  edit:  The screen isn't tilted.  It's actually warped in the lower left corner.  It warps upwards.

3.  The smart strip.  I assumed that when powering down the pc, everything else would shut off.  That isn't the case.  Since the mobo still has "dormant power" or whatever you wanna call it, everything else stays on.  I thought most people used the pc to power on everything by pushing a power switch, and THEN everything else turns on.  For now, everything is on as soon as the smart strip is on, since the mobo already has the "dormant power."  Can you disable this "power" in the BIOS?  If you can, then I'm not certain which entry to change.

Other than these things, everything looks fine so far.  The sound works GREAT on my altec lansing 4.1s.  Tried ZSNES and the picture looked like it normally would on tv.  So emus seem to be good.  Haven't tried MAME yet.

[daywane]

do not use a on and off switch
I have used arcade momentary switches
and others. ( from older towers)

find the docs on your mother board or trace the wires going to the power buttom on your tower you can cut the wires and add some more wire going to a arcade button.

[hypernova]

I don't have a tower.  That's the point.  I just wanna quick-test everything to see if it all powers up.

[RayB]

For quicktest, just quickly make contact between the two pins, but don't leave it on.

[daywane]

a flat head screw driver will work.
stick between the pins and twist screw driver ( softly)
contacting the 2 power pins
remove screw driver

[hypernova]

Thanks for the suggestions guys.

See new questions at top.

[MajorLag]

I think I have the same card... or one very similar. Its a radeon and it has similar problems. I'll tell you what I know.

1.  The boot up image and Windows loading screens are scrolling/flipping on the TV.  Any workaround to this?  Once windows is completely loaded, everything's fine.

I've read that, for some reason, the card defaults to PAL output. On an NTSC TV it would appear like you describe. Once the windows driver is load the card is software switched into NTSC mode. I don't know the details, but supposedly there is a jumper you can either cut, or connect, that will change the hardware default. I don't find it any more annoying then having to Wait through the boot process with correct display anyway.

2.  The screen is lopsided, like a hanging picture.  It's tilted ever-so-slightly clockwise.

Haven't noticed this on mine. Doesn't the control panel for the card have something to adjust it?

3.  The screen is also an inch higher than it should be.  (Black space occupies the bottom.)

I don't know if it is the same problem, but my card always ignores its image adjustment settings until you've changed the resolution once. On mine this means that there is a black bar of unused space on the he bottom of the screen. I worked around it by writing a really trivial sdl app to change the resolution to 320x200 and back again at startup, forcing the stupid drivers to load my settings.

4.  Text.  My goodness, the text.   Anything too small is almost painful to read on Windows.  The Windows OS is just hard to see/read on the TV.

Windows wasn't designed for TVs. I personally use High-contrast mode to make most text more readable.

Can't help with the rest. Sorry.

[hypernova]

Found the control panel for adjusting the screen size/position.  Still ain't perfect, as edited in the first post.  That darned warp in the lower left corner is annoying, to say the least.

Right now, I'm only using the supplied cable to connect to the tv.  It comes out of the svideo port on the card, and goes to the yellow video jack on the tv (not the svideo.)  Maybe an svideo-svideo cable will help things a bit.  Or possibly even a component cable.  But I've read those things require some trial and error to get working correctly.  I'll do a search again, anyway.