Between VistaUltimate and a non-HD TV, is there any way to play, say, an avi file on the TV with good quality?

Question

i would obviously need some sort of tuner/video card, but what i am most concerned with is the picture quality of mostly .avi files playing from the computer and the television essintially acting as a "computer moniter". if you need any more clarification for what i am asking let me know. thanks.

Answer 1

You have two different problems
a) Connect the PC to the TV. Without an HD TV, the best connections you have are probably s-video or composite.

A Standard-resolution TV has about 240 lines so even your fonts and text will look lousy. Plus connecting a PC to the TV with s-video is rather desparate

b) Playing avi. Avi is what we call a file wrapper. It can include video files with different formats/codecs (ex. MPEG-1, MPEG-4, Divx, DV, etc). The quality of these files depends on two parameters: the picture resolution (say 720x480) and the bit rate of the file (say 1.5 Mbits/s). So, even with an HD TV, if the original file has small resolution and low bit rate, it is not going to look that good.

Summary: Using a SD TV as a monitor (even if possible) is not a good idea. Even the cheapest PC monitor will give you better quality. AVI files will need to be scaled up to fill the screen. If the original resolution is small, they will look pretty bad.