Originally posted by Sean:
So a $40 DVD player can out-perform a $1500 computer used as DVD player. Why am I not surprised.
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Not at all. You need to have the right video card. A cheapo card is what the issue is going to be. The ATI All In Wonder cards have the best overall output to the TV, with the Nvidias second.
Both cards can be had with S-Video out. The ATI Radeon 9700 All In Wonder has Component Video Out (amongst many other features), but its $400 because its the top of the line! The ATI AIW 8500 can be had for about $250, but your not going to get the latest video acceleration for games, nor component out, so it will be a compromise.
Computers have a much higher resolution than TVs, and for the most part DVDs played on a computer are going to look nicer than on the TV.
Cards with only composite out usually have crappy quality and a max resolution of 640 pixels. The ATIs are beautiful and can be shown at up to 1028.
Originally posted by FC-Fire/Rescue:
I do have RCA Video out on my laptop, and I can use TV as a computer screen, but for some reason it does not let you watch DVDs
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Laptops frequently skimp on quality video hardware. But it is probably your DVD software that won't let you watch through the component out, or you are unaware of how to configure it properly. Given most laptop video hardware, you probably wouldn't want to see it anyway. Like I just said, you'll specifically need to get a laptop with ATI or Nvidia video hardware if you want to see DVDs with any quality on TVs.