Hi all. I've been back here quite a few times with some widescreen monitor questions. I have a Sceptre 20.1 Widescreen monitor. Overall, I'm very pleased with it. Incredible picture quality/ sharpness with DVD movies played through my computer, and also with graphic-intense video games. However, there's a problem when viewing television programs. For my video card, I have an ATI All In Wonder X800 XT AGP 256MB Video RAM. It has dual monitor capabilities. I have my Sceptre monitor hooked up with a DVI cable as the Primary monitor, and then a ViewSonic CRT monitor hooked in with a "standard" VGA cable as my Secondary monitor. I've written to BOTH companies tech support (ATI and Sceptre), and I swear, sometimes, getting a "straight" answer out of them no matter how much detail you give them is like pulling teeth. I've only heard back from ATI a couple of times, and of course, one of their suggestions is ALWAYS to have the latest drivers for the video card. I have the latest, most up-to-date drivers for BOTH the video card AND the monitor itself. Here's the problem: As I mentioned, DVD movies and graphic-intense video games look far superior on the widescreen monitor; such clarity, definition, and color! BUT.......when I launch ATI's Television program, the picture on the Sceptre widescreen monitor looks like crap. It's blurry, the colors "bleed", and if there's any text on the screen (like on certain commercials or, when you're watching the news), the letters in the text are ill-defined and fuzzy. The same image - broadcast simultaneously on the "standard" ViewSonic CRT monitor - actually looks better and clearer on the ViewSonic monitor. How is this possible? What I'm writing to all of you here is what I've written when I've wrote to ATI and Sceptre tech support. As I mentioned, ATI wrote back with nothing helpful so far, and Sceptre has yet to reply. There's also something I've thought of: Do you know how with WideScreen televisions in general (NOT computer monitors: TELEVISIONS), there's this option on many of these televisions that when watching a "standard" broadcast in 4:3 fullscreen, that there's an option to "stretch" the picture to fill the widescreen from left to right so you don't get the black bars on the sides of the screen (as opposed to the black bars on the top and bottom of the screen when watching a widescreen movie on a "standard" 4:3 television set)? I'm getting the feeling - although I haven't found out for sure yet from either ATI or Sceptre - that THIS is what's happening when I watch a television program on my widescreen monitor. Although, I haven't selected any option on either my ATI software or my Sceptre monitor to do just that. "Standard" broadcasts - I THINK - are being "stretched" across the widescreen. I don't know HOW, but I THINK this is what's happening. I didn't CHOOSE it anywhere. A DVI cable is the better cable of choice when hooking an LCD widescreen monitor to a video card, correct? And, when hooking my DirecTV satellite box to my video card, an S-Video cable is the better cable of choice also, correct? Anybody have any idea what's going on here? So far, ATI hasn't been of much help and Sceptre hasn't replied to me yet. Thanks for any help or suggestions. Pez

"The same image - broadcast simultaneously on the "standard" ViewSonic CRT monitor - actually looks better and clearer on the ViewSonic monitor. How is this possible?" All LCD display screens have a specified "optimum" or "native" resolution at which the image looks the best and has the sharpest, clearest image. Other resolutions on an LCD monitor will not look as good. With a better brand/model, such as Samsung's, it will still look quite good at most resolutions, but on some lesser brands/models it may not. The most obvious difference is the appearance of text will not look as good in other resolutions. You can minimize that effect by Using a built in feature of XP. Turn on Clear Type in Windows XP - makes type on LCD screens look clearer http://www.microsoft.com/typography... CRT monitors have no such problem. The clarity is the same in all resolutions. The response time - the time it takes a pixel's color to change - is much faster on a CRT monitor, so motion and video look better. The TV output of the ATI card is probably not in the "optimum" or "native" resolution. If you can select several resolutions for the TV output, try the different ones - one or some may look better than others. As far as the blurriness and bleeding are concerned, I have no explanation for that. A friend of mine has a made by ATI AIW 9800 and the ATI TV display is excellent on a LCD Samsung 19" combo TV/monitor, as good as the built in TV tuner's, and on a LCD Samsung 19" (the single VGA video output is connected to a video splitter/amp and to the two monitors). Both monitors are not widescreen, "native" resolution is 1280 x 1024. It looks good regardless of whether she uses the ATI TV app software or the Media Center TV app software (she has MCE 2005, ATI MCE drivers loaded). You could try fine tuning the settings of the monitor itself using it's own OSD or settings in Display - Settings - Advanced - ? - to improve that situation. You could try another LCD monitor - it may be the monitor that has the problem, not the video card or it's drivers. Some resolutions have widescreen height to width ratios, some do not. The display will not look stretched if you choose a widescreen resolution. Windows Plug and Play Monitor drivers were designed for CRT monitors primarily, and are not ideal for LCD monitors. If you haven't already done so, you should load the drivers for the monitors - that way the resolutions and other settings you can choose in Display - Settings will be what the monitor maker intended and look best in, of the ones the video card is capable of, and by default Windows will not show you settings not meant for your monitor model.

Hi Tubesandwires; thanks for the reply. I know about "native resolution", and I DO have my monitor set at it (for this Sceptre widescreen, it's 1680 x 1050). For the heck of it once, I tried a smaller resolution, but things on my desktop looked stretched out and the definition wasn't as clear. I've tried the Clear Type and Standard, and I actually prefer Standard. Although, neither seemed to have an effect on the text I see in a television broadcast (it does have an effect on "normal" text, such as the names of icons on the desktop, or word in a Word Document). The TV output on the ATI card (this X800 XT I have) doesn't really have an "optimum" or "native" resolution. When watching a television program, I can right-click on the screen and go into Setup, and from there change the "size" of how it appears on the screen (20%, 50%, 80%, or Full). Nothing about the TV's resolution, though. Believe me, I've tried many and various things!!! :-) You mentioned that friend of yours and their Samsung (I was looking at that company's when deciding on a widescreen monitor, but this Sceptre's specs are pretty impressive, too: 5ms response time, and 1000:1 contrast ratio). But, you also mentioned that it's not a widescreen. What's the "Media Center TV app software" you mentioned? By trying to fine tune the monitors itself by using the OSD, there are certain things that are not "available" when using a DVI connection cable (I found this out in the Owners Manual); they are "grayed out". This includes adjustment of Screen Size and Geometry. If I were to use a VGA cable to hook the monitor to the video card, then these two items would become available. I'm still waiting to hear back from the Sceptre company's tech support, so maybe they'll have something to offer. It really seems like to me that the picture is automatically being "stretched" to fit the widescreen, whether I choose it or not; like it's the "Default" setting. Kind of like what I mentioned before that widescreen televisions do with that Option when watching a show broadcast in Standard 4:3. Anything else you can think of? And how about what I asked about that "Media Center TV app software"? Thanks, Pez

I have MCE 2005 on a Toshiba Qosmio Laptop with a built in tuner. Unfortunately, as with any RF device, interference from within the computer degrades the signal quality. I have had several good quality internal television tuners for both PC and Laptop and the problem is constant regardless of the quality entering the device. Proper grounding and all that stuff helps but it is still so close to the electronic parts to really help. The best I have found is obviously an external to USB2.0 device. As for your case I would recommend that you get some RF shielding material and put it around the device to help block this interference. I would say that almost definitely your problem is in your tuner.

"Media Center TV app software"? MCE is the same as XP Pro, except with a few features in XP Pro left out that most people don't use, plus it has the added Media Center group of programs that provide additional multimedia support (there's lot more to it - e.g. if you have the OEM CD's there are two CD's rather than one). You have a Media Center program that you can start up, and if the hardware has MCE compatible drivers, there are sub-programs within Media center you can use. One of them is for TV support - it is quite good in my opinion - it is designed with good readabilty (larger fonts, etc. - there is a free TV listings app that can download listings for your area and provides some info about movies, programs, and the stars in them; you can watch TV like a PVR - rewind, pause, etc., you can schedule programs to be recorded and that will auto tell you if two or more settings conflict, or will pick one of the two automatically; many other features. Media Center also supports the use of a MCE compatible remote control. "This includes adjustment of Screen Size and Geometry. If I were to use a VGA cable to hook the monitor to the video card, then these two items would become available. " Those settings aren't likely to improve blurriness or bleeding. Brightness and color intensity settings can certainly influence blurriness and bleeding. And contrast to some degree. Unfortunately you can't tell from specs how good resolutions other than "optimal" or "native" will look on a LCD display. My advice is to go someplace that has the model you want to buy on display and try different resolutions to see what you think. Going by my experience with my friends Samsungs, that brands models are likely to give you reasonable displays at most if not all resolutions. TV tuners on a video card are limited to displaying resolutions that are compatible with the TV display standard you use in your area - the standard north american one, or Pal, or Secam. E.g. on older video cards only 640 x 480 could be displayed with the standard north american one but newer cards can display at higher resolutions.

You know, I think the problem is just that TV signals don't create a well-defined picture. The larger the display, the more clearly you can see every little fault in the video stream; this doesn't matter if you're using a CRT or LCD. You should see how crappy a VHS tape looks when being displayed using a projector or big screen TV. Your problem also has nothing to do with native resolution, since you ARE displaying the TV feed at your native 1680x1050 resolution. DVDs produce a much better picture than standard cable TV. But even DVDs begin to look crappy when displayed on a 55" or larger display. My Super P3: Pentium III-S 1.4GHz @ 1.58GHz, 512K L2 X800XT All-in-wonder, overclocked to 580/600. 250GB HD 2 gigs of PC2100 RAM QDI Advance 12 mobo, this baby rocks! SB Audigy 2

A TV tuner display on a monitor other than a HDTV display is always coarser than a monitor display in Windows because the TV display standards are inferior and were specified way back in the 40's and 50's, and the pixels on a TV are much larger and the resolution is much lower than those on a computer monitor - that's to be expected. But he shouldn't be getting blurriness and bleeding.