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Main => Monitor/Video Forum => Topic started by: pacboy on December 30, 2015, 10:49:32 pm

Title: What's the best way to hook up a modern pc to my analog tv?
Post by: pacboy on December 30, 2015, 10:49:32 pm

I currently have my old analog Samsung TX-R2435 tv hooked up to my desktop pc using an ATI Radeon X800 XL card with component output.  The picture is great and looks very close to how arcade monitors look.  Plus using a Pelican system selector I'm able to also hook up several consoles to the same tv via component and play arcade ports to complement the pc games.
I want to build a new updated pc and still hook up to this tv and I have several questions:

1) is the general consensus that I'll get the best quality analog component signal by continuing to use a graphics card that outputs component natively or are signal converters an option?

2) I'm having trouble finding which cards had component tv-out.  There doesn't seem to be any list compiled which requires looking up the specs for every card.  When you look up the specs for the X800 XL it doesn't even say that it outputs component when if fact it does, so the specs can be wrong sometimes.  What were the last cards produced with component tv-out?

3) any hardware compatibility problems hooking up an older pci express card to a new skylake motherboard running windows 10?  Will the old catalyst software run in windows 10?

Thanks for any advice!

Title: Re: What's the best way to hook up a modern pc to my analog tv?
Post by: Slippyblade on December 31, 2015, 12:45:24 pm

Component would be the best way, but S-Video is totally fine.

Title: Re: What's the best way to hook up a modern pc to my analog tv?
Post by: tim258 on December 31, 2015, 06:53:33 pm

Down sampling won't be a problem for any modern video card. You could even buy a more modern video card with hdmi and buy a HDMI to component cable and that should work for what your trying to achieve.


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Title: Re: What's the best way to hook up a modern pc to my analog tv?
Post by: pacboy on January 01, 2016, 10:42:37 am

Wont the HDMI to component cable produce a digital component signal?  I need an analog component signal for this tv. Plus the catalyst software allows me to output the analog component at 640 x 432 IIRC which deals with the tv's overscan.  The tv needs a 480i signal normally.

 I think I could use something like this:
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/770115-REG/KanexPro_HDRGBRL_HDMI_to_Component_Converter.html (http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/770115-REG/KanexPro_HDRGBRL_HDMI_to_Component_Converter.html)

But wont the task bar get cut off because of the tv's overscan? it's not outputting 640 x 432 like catalyst does.  And since the signal goes through a DAC will the signal quality suffer as a result?

Title: Re: What's the best way to hook up a modern pc to my analog tv?
Post by: pacboy on January 01, 2016, 07:15:23 pm

Looks like I should have read this:

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,121491.msg1288804.html#msg1288804 (http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,121491.msg1288804.html#msg1288804)