Laptop TV

[Deep_6]

My old 12v TV is due a float test soon and I have been toying with the idea of trying a TV card with the laptop which I carry onboard.
Whats the quality of picture and do you get full screen or a small box in centre of screen?


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[MedMan]

I have only seen TV from a TV card on a desktop machine but it did have an LCD screen. The system allowed you to blow the picture up to full screen but the picture became quite fuzzy, though still watchable. The biggest problem with the LCD screen was viewing angle - only the person fairly central to the screen in both the horizontal and vertical plane could see the picture well. I believe there is a further issue with many laptops arising from the lack of a fast enough video card or equivalent. I may well be wrong or out of touch on both these issues - things change so quickly. Hopefully someone with greater and/or more up-to-date knowledge will put me right.


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[ceeagr]

I do it through a win TV unit connected to my USB 2 port. Watch out however as earlier USB 1.1 ports may not be fast enough.

Alistair

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[Robin]

I bought one and couldn't get it to work reliably on a highish spec 15" Sony VA10 laptop. When it worked it was quite good, you could use it full screen or in a window. However on ours it would lock up and freeze the screen, sometimes after a few minutes, sometimes it would get you to the last 10 minutes of a movie before going belly up - really annoying. I tried everything including downloading new drivers, latest software etc but it still did it. The makers Hauphaug were not very helpful either, saying more or less that oh some Sonys don't work well with it. In the end I gave up and took the thing back to PC World for credit, I got the impression they had a few back like that! I do know some people have got theirs working (with new drivers) so it is possible, you might need better speakers too than the laptop built ins and (see below too) they are not multi-standard, the version sold in the UK will not work in France for example.

We ended up with a 15" LCD TV that will run directly on 12v, or on 220v AC, or on 12v via an inverter. These are pricey but there are some occasional special offers around, we actually got ours at Argos in exchange for a bagfull of Nectar points collected over the years and which I had thought a waste of time! The advantage of LCD TVs on a boat is that they use less power and are considerably smaller for the same screen size of normal TV. Be careful though if going this route as some (like Sharp Aquos) although nominally 12v DC must be run via an inverter or Sharp will not honour the warranty, and not all LCD TVs are 12v, some I think were up to 17v. Also some of the 12v connections via the supplied power supply are not easy to make up yourself (LG Flatron & others have tiny multi-pin plugs) to run direct on 12v. One other caveat is that like normal portables not all are multi-standard TVs that will run on all systems in all countries. We have a 15" Bush which has an easy jackplug type 12v connector and is fully multi-standard, the price had we not used Nectar points would have been £325 last November, I have seen similar suitable sets for £299.



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[Birdseye]

A variant on this question.

I have a holiday home in the Canaries where TV is cr*p. The satellite only offers Sky. Is it possible to receive BBC via and ADSL phone line and a laptop?

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[duncan]

you will probably get the info you want from here <A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.digitalspy.co.uk>http://www.digitalspy.co.uk</A>

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[yachttequilla]

I've used winTV on my Toshiba laptop at home and in the Med. Excellent picrues at home, not so good onboard but that was quality of the antenae not the fault of the pc or system.

If you've a good antenae then quality can be excellent, not far off DVD quality of the laptop.

I also use the win TV to take stills off camcorder footage to send to family back home.

Hope this is of some help

Steve

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[rickwat]

I had same on VAIO FX505 15" with WinTV keep freezing and crashing the system. I think Windows XP has it in for anything not specifically approved by Microsoft and I suspect Sony has it in for any media that may in any slight way affect its own products - LCD TV's? or am I just an old sceptic? I've tried all ways to record my vinyl records without success which I could do no prob on my old Tosh Satellite.

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[Robin]

Thanks, I thought it was just me maybe doing something wrong. Certainly there is a warning that comes up on loading that the software has not been approved by Microsoft which Hauphaug tells you it is OK to ignore, though there was if I remember right a downloadable version for XP, still got the 'not approved' warning though. Probably the problem is with the video/graphics set up that Sony use?



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[zefender]

I struggled to get the WinTV card working to produce a decent picture on board too. I've now bought a 12V 15" LCD TV/PC monitor. This means that I can pack the notebook away safely in a locker so it's not at risk of flying about and frees up the chart table too. I work the PC via wireless mouse and keyboard. The monitor will (not done yet!) be fitted on a pole so that it can be used as a navigation monitor (via the PC). If I want to watch DVDs or TV, I can just rotate the screen 180deg to face the saloon. Whilst most LCD TVs are able to work as a PC monitor too, it's important to get one with with a decent PC resolution and signal autosensing. I got mine via ebay for £260 plus VAT. I think it's probably better in the long run to spend a bit more on a LCD with integral tuner than a card.

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[Trevethan]

I have tried two systems both Hauppage. One I bought about 5 years ago is a card that fits inside a desktop PC. Fairly easy to install, works well and good picture.

However it didn't work well on the boat because of crappy signal.

A couple of months back I bought one of their digital TV USB devices and the resukltts are excellent... mosst of the time.

Its running on a Pentium 3 at 450 MHz (minimum really is 500 MHz and that is why I suspect I get the ocassional freeze.

I use a 15 inch LCD monitor and its diven by a mid range grapghics card (mid rang in 1999)

I have to admit the bot sound and picture are very good, and I suspect when I upgrade the PC later thios year, performance will improve.

If you've not bought your PC yet, make sure you get one with a very good graphics card with lots of memory. My card had 8 megabytes memory, whioch is why when you change station the image can get jerky for a a second or two. More memory a 64 megabyte card forexample would alleviate much of this as would a faster processor.



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[Deep_6]

Many thanks everyone for the input.
Mike

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