Increasing visual clarity on my TV

[LCDSCREEN]

Alright, so I built an Arcade cabinet, and everything runs just fine 

Although, if theres one problem, its that I'm using a TV as the monitor.
Right now my computer is connected to it with an S-Video cable, but it still doesn't look how I would like.
The TV is by some cheap brand called Digistar, so... I dnow.

The main problems include:
Somewhat blurry visuals (Not what I remember the old arcades to look like)
Contrast Problems (Bright colors on black background make a sort of shadowy coloured effect)

Is there any way I can fix this? :O

[qrz]

age of TV ?

a weak crt could cause the described symptom.

qrz

[MonMotha]

The S-Video output on most PC video cards includes a terrible scaler chain and a not-so-good chroma modulator.  The scaler in particular can also cause those symptoms, though they'll look different than a weak CRT.  Do higher quality signals, such as the s-video output of a quality DVD player, look any better?

[LCDSCREEN]

Its a fairly new TV, and when using the S-Video/Component connections with a DVD player or game system it look amazing. I was really let down when I used the PC.

[ChicagoDave]

Its a fairly new TV, and when using the S-Video/Component connections with a DVD player or game system it look amazing. I was really let down when I used the PC.

If your TV supports component video, I would suggest using that.  It made quite a bit of difference with my TV.  The colors are brighter, and the picture is sharper.  Im am using an ATI X800 Pro video card with a DVI to Component dongle.

[MonMotha]

At 480i, there's really only minimal difference in the quality of signal you can deliver between S-Video and Component (composite will look terrible, of course).  I have an RGB to S-Video adapter I built that actually gives outputs darn near indistinguishable from an arcade monitor on most arcade video signals.  The biggest thing your component setup does is eliminate the scaler chain that the TV output encoder uses.  These scalers usually a) suck, and b) attempt to underscan the image for you, resulting in even less resolution than your TV is capable of actually being used.

Some TV output encoders are somewhat smart and will disable their scalers if told to do so by software and fed a compatible signal, only interlacing the output as required.  Try setting your desktop res to 640x480 at 60Hz (VESA VGA standard, pretty much compatible with ATSC 480p) and disabling underscan (or set full overscan) in the TV output settings.  Depending on several factors, you may only be interlacing the output, rather than scaling it, which doesn't really affect visual quality of static images.  Failing that, either find yourself a component dongle if your TV supports it (it's stupid that you should have to resort to this, but it's the way PC video cards are made) or find a video card with TV out that doesn't suck (good. luck.).