Playing video files from PC to TV comes out blurry?

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nuzuki

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I have a desktop PC which when I play a video file plays fine and in good detail. However I have linked my pc to the TV and the same video tends to come out blurry. The link is a VGA cable. I toyed with the idea of connecting it via HDMI. I just wondered if anyone has had experience of this problem? Ive put up with it for so long its starting to damage my eyes.

Thanks for any help
 
What size is your TV. VGA only puts out 640x480, so will look blurry. Try the HDMI cable, but you might still need to change the resolution on the computer when you send it to the tv depending on how new or old the PC is.
 
Thanks for the reply Doggit. My tv is 32inch made by Luxor (cheap asda make). The Pc is a Dell Optiplex 780 running XP. I play my media using VLC media player. Is there anything I can upgrade on the PC to get round this problem? Im guessing graphics card but havent a clue which one is compatible.
 
Nuzuki,
Presuming your XP computer has a SVGA video card in it, then your computer 'should' be able to transmit a signal that matches your TV screen.
Have you tried, right clicking on your mouse on the desktop and changing the resolutions being transmitted by the computer to the TV to see if that improves the image on your TV?
I would try 1,280x720

[I said 'should' because I have found some computers or TVs that refuse to lock onto some TVs or computers via the VGA cable].
sfk
 
I have the options of
800 by 600
1024 by 768
1280 by 1024
1600 by 1200

Ive gone through them all and the picture is still blurry. Ive just bought a samsung TV for another room so shall try it out on that soon. Could it be the Luxor TV is just cheap and nasty?
 
Nuzuki,
Could be the cheap and nasty issue - perhaps TV has a cheap driver and not an exact (say) '1024 by 768' screen so overlaying the image badly over the screen (I fairly frequently find TVs that have the problem of the computer image overlapping under the bevel of the TV screen.
Question - Did the image change as you worked through the four different resolutions you tried?
My only other thought is that your VGA cable is over long or poor quality.
Pls come back to us about how it works with Samsung.
 
SFK - The image changed but only on the PC, the TV output still remained blurry. The VGA cable is likely to be a cheap ebay one and is around 5m long. It goes into a VGA splitter at the rear of the PC, one feed going to the pc monitor and one going to the TV. I find when subtitles come on screen they have blurred bits left and right of the text although its smudged horizontally but not vertically.

Motorbiking - Where can I adjust the refresh rate? Is that a TV or PC thing?

Thanks for your help so far.
 
Nuzuki,
From memory Refresh rate is on same screen as changing the resolution.

regarding the splitter - when whenever I connect computer or laptop to TV I find it best to have direct VGA connection.
In other words one cable from Computer to the TV (no monitor) and in the case of the Laptop, turn off the laptop screen so image only on TV.

5m is also quite long for a VGA - but might be okay.
SFK
 
5m is not long for vga.

Does your computer have a DVI or HDMI output. That would be the easiest and cleanest way. Simple cable to buy.

I presume your tv I wide screen 16:9 so the tv is trying to scale a 4:3 image onto it, hence the softness.
 
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I had problems with my desktop displaying it with the TV, would work grand on a small monitor, but with TV it would start OK as it booted then go blank, however it was running windows 7 and when windows 10 came out some how it managed to get windows 10, at which point it worked A1 with TV, so clearly something to do with operating system not the PC.

With this in mind you may find another operating system works better, since most TV's work on Linux I would guess a Linux operating system would work better than Microsoft, clearly you don't want to get rid of XP, however you can get, often from mag get give away Linux live CD's which allow you to temporary run Linux, I used them to access files with Microsoft passwords, if you can get hold of one of these CD's then that may be the easy cure, and also show if the problem is hardware or software related.

I have never been a Linux lover, daughters old boy friend had these CD's and tried to convert me, and failed. I also use programs like Photoshop and Gimp with Linux just does not work as well, but to pop in a live disk to test if operating system or hardware problem seems a simple and cheap way forward.
 
Samsung play video file direct from a memory stick , much easier than fiddling with cables.
If it's still fuzzy then your video files are formatted for small screen ( mobile phone, pad, laptop)
You could install Plex on you laptop and Samsung and stream directly from laptop.
 
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