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How to watch AVI files on your television Author Miles Contents
IntroductionLet?s face it: your PC?s monitor is great for high-resolution graphics and crystal-clear text when you?re browsing the Internet or sending emails, but wouldn?t you prefer to watch your DVD backups on your TV from the comfort of your sofa? You could use the AVI file to make a VCD or SVCD to play on your standalone DVD player (see KingJohns Guide, My First VCD V2), but this does have its drawbacks:
The alternative is to leave the file as it is, and have your PC play the video on your TV. To be fair, I should point out that this too has its disadvantages: it is less convenient to use your PC?s keyboard instead of your DVD player?s remote, and a noisy PSU or CPU fan in your PC can overwhelm the soundtrack during quiet sections. The way you watch your video therefore comes down to personal preference. This is a guide, based on my own experience, to a typical PC to TV set-up and the common problems encountered. Since there are numerous possible configurations of hardware and software, no guide can be completely comprehensive, but I hope that you will find it useful and informative. Connecting the hardwareTo be on the safe side, I recommend that all connections are made with the PC and TV completely powered off. Video connectionsThe two most common methods of getting your PC to display a picture on your TV are summarized below; more detailed information and other methods can be found in the "Further Reading" section at the end of this guide. S-videoS-video will give superior image quality, and you should use this system, if available, in preference to composite video. You will need:
You should consult your TV?s user guide to find out if its SCART sockets are S-video compatible. Bear in mind that if the TV has several SCART sockets, only certain ones may work with an S-video signal. Composite videoYou will need:
Audio connectionsModern sound cards have several connections that can give digital surround sound if you have the correct hardware - this kind of setup is currently beyond the scope of this guide. For most users, the easiest way to hear the sound from the AVI file is to connect the TV to the line-out jack in your PC?s soundcard. You will need a stereo 3.5mm jack (aka 1/8" miniplug) to 2?CA (aka phono) cable.
Plug the jack into the line-out socket on your PC?s soundcard ? this is usually coloured green. Unfortunately, you will need to unplug your PC speakers, unless you buy a 3.5mm splitter similar to this one:
The two RCA plugs go into your TV; make sure the colours match up and that you are using the same AV channel that you connected the video signal to - in the photographs above you can see the red and white RCA sockets next to the video inputs. The red one carries the right audio channel, and the white one - sometimes the plug is coloured black - carries the left channel. Of course, if you have a dedicated home cinema receiver with Dolby Pro-logic decoder, then you should connect the RCA plugs directly to this. You will get much better sound than from the speakers in your TV, which are normally small and tinny in comparison. If you have backed-up your DVD to an AVI file with AC-3 sound, the Dolby Digital information can be down-mixed to a 2-channel Dolby Surround soundtrack which the receiver will be able to decode. Video card driver settingsGeneral noteThe importance of video card drivers is often understated when it comes to video playback. Sometimes problems that you might think are caused by the player software or the codecs can be rectified by changing from true colour (32 bit) to high colour (16 bit) mode in Display Properties, or by updating your display drivers. I am not saying that you should always use the very latest drivers for your video card ? if you are experiencing no problems then stick with your current version. You can however carry out a simple diagnostic test to determine if problems are related to your video drivers. If setting the ?Hardware Acceleration Level? to ?None? in Display Properties rectifies a particular problem, then you should try a driver update first, before tweaking your player or codec settings. Video cards with ATi Radeon chipsetsOpen the Display Properties dialogue from the control panel or the desktop right-click menu, and click the ?Displays? tab. (In later driver versions, the Displays tab is located under Settings -> Advanced.) If the TV is connected correctly you should now be able to enable it by clicking the red button above the picture of the TV; it will now turn green (1). Now click TV (2), and in the format tab ensure that the correct TV format used in your country is selected (3).
When you play your AVI file, the video will only appear on the primary display, so you must set your TV as primary by clicking the button shown (4). Many monitors do not support the PAL refresh rate of 50 Hz, and some could even be damaged if the video card attempts it ? in any case, a 50 Hz refresh rate on your monitor will give you severe eyestrain! Therefore, set the monitor as clone (5), this allows you to keep your monitor at its existing refresh rate. Video cards with NVIDIA GeForce chipsetsContributed by wozzalevi 1. Right click on desktop - then left click properties - then settings - then advanced.
2. Click on the GeForce tab - then display mode - which gives you dual mode or clone - click clone, then set up TV to NTSC or PAL depending on your TV, also set PC to primary & TV to secondary. (All these are done through display mode.)
3. Click overlay controls - you should have something that says "full screen device", this will be disabled, click it to secondary; this will give you fullscreen on both displays.
4. Using this method it may ask for the screen size to change, it will be automatic, just click yes & resize it back after it is set up, as long as leads are connected all the time or on reboot you won't need to change screen size again. Some people use TV as primary, I've never set mine that way so can't advise on that. Television setupIf you have followed the guide so far, your computer should now be connected to one of your TV's AV channels. Turn on your TV and select this channel now. I am guessing that 50% of readers who get to this stage will have a black-and-white image of their desktop on the TV. (If you are one of the other 50%, then well done ? you may skip this next part!)
This is most likely because either:
To correct the latter, use the on-screen menu system of your TV to tell it whether you have connected a composite or S-video signal. (Please ignore the fact that my cheap-brand TV calls it ?SVHS? - that is a videotape format, not a video signal!)
The picture on the screen should now be displayed in colour. If you have a widescreen TV, you should now set the picture mode to ?zoom? or ?cinema?. This will cut off the top and bottom of the picture but don?t worry; these parts are not normally used when playing AVI files created from DVD. You can still see the full desktop on your monitor. AVI playbackMedia playerDozens of different players are available to play your AVI files, and it is of course your decision which one you want to use. My personal player of choice is Windows Media Player Version 6.4, for the following reasons:
This older version, shipped with Windows 98, is probably installed on your system even though you do not realise it. For example, using Windows ME or Windows XP, which ship with WMP V7 or V8 respectively, you can still run V6.4 by typing ?mplayer2? at the command prompt. Other popular players seem to be:
CodecsAs well as the player software, you will also need software to decompress the video and audio from your AVI file (unless you are using the VideoLAN player, which includes its own built-in decoders). See KingJohns Guide to Codecs. DirectShow filtersSome people recommend that instead of installing separate codecs for DivX 3.11, DivX 5, XviD etc. you should simply install ffdshow - a single filter that will decompress all these formats. This filter has more extensive post-processing options, potentially improving playback quality. I don't actually use this filter myself, but you may like to try it and see if it suits you. However, please remember that it is a filter for playback only. If you ever want to convert the AVI to create a VCD or SVCD, or if you ever need to fix an AVI file that has become corrupt with ?bad frames? in the video, you will need to have the full codec installed. The Nimo codec pack includes several other filters such as bicubic resizer and DivX antifreeze filters. As far as I can see, these seem to serve no purpose whatsoever, and tend to interfere with each other resulting in upside down picture, green-coloured distortion, etc. My advice therefore is to AVOID NIMO AT ALL COSTS! However, there is one filter that I will tentatively recommend, that is the ReClock DirectShow Filter. This filter is useful if you have a PAL TV, and want to watch a file that has a framerate of 23.976; the playback speed is increased to 25 frames per second so that the video is in sync with the TV, eliminating the slight jerkiness that you sometimes see on fast camera pans. The filter also has the option to apply dynamic range compression to the audio stream (put simply, this increases the volume of quieter sounds), which I find gives a massive improvement in the quality of down-mixed AC3 soundtracks. Playing the fileStart WMP and open your AVI file. Alternatively, you can associate the .avi extension with WMP V6.4, so you can play a file just by double clicking it. When the file starts playing, hit Alt+Enter to change to fullscreen mode and, remembering to move the mouse pointer off the screen, retire to the sofa with a cold beer and a bucket of popcorn. If you want another beer, you must press the space bar on your keyboard to pause playback while you go to the fridge. This is why wireless keyboards are a good idea - and particularly multimedia types that have a dedicated play/pause key. You may notice that when the player restarts, the playback appears to be a little jerky for a minute ? this is a feature of the ReClock filter as it struggles to re-sync playback with your TV?s refresh rate. For best results, get a mini-fridge next to your sofa, so you don?t have to interrupt playback. :-) Here?s a useful little tip I found whilst browsing DivX Digest: You can archive an AVI file onto a CD-R and have it automatically start playing when the disc is inserted. Here's how: Copy the following text and paste into Notepad: [autorun] (where movie.avi is the name of the AVI file you want to archive.) Save this text file somewhere as ?Autorun.inf?, and remember to include in the file selector part of your CD burning software.
When this disc is inserted into a CD-ROM drive, Windows Media Player will open automatically, and playback will start in fullscreen mode. Further readingHooking your PC up to a Television - guide by TheFaimousOne from the FastTrack Central forums. Watch video on the TV using a computer with TV-Out - another useful guide, from dvdrhelp.com. Composite and S-Video Connection of RADEON Cards to TV and Movie Playback - excellent guide for more advanced Radeon users. TV-Out Connection and Adjustment for GeForce4Ti and GeForce4MX (GeForce2MX) Video Cards with TwinView (nView) - excellent guide for more advanced GeForce users. VGA to RGB SCART Direct Drive with ATi Radeon 7500 / 8500 / 9x00 - for the best quality picture from a Radeon card (very advanced). RGB mode with Chrontel chips - for the best picture quality from a Geforce card (very advanced). Credits and disclaimerMain guide text written by me (Miles). This guide is not intended to be definitive and the recommendations here are based on my (limited) experience and knowledge only. In no way do I consider myself to be an expert or qualified to give detailed technical advice.
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