TV-out help please! --Video noise interference?

[ac3]

Major help needed here please:

I have a Dell Dimension P4 installed with latest ATI Radon 8500 video card All-in-one TV out, everything is great on the pc. When I output video by using TV-out feature, the TV screen is not clearn, it has lots of black lines of interferences, those vague lines mostly static but moving at times, from corner to corner, so they are neither horizontal or vertical. Has everyone experienced this??? Is this because I am using a large 16:9 TV 65' I can see them more clearly? This is very annoying.

I took a camera shot of the TV screen, please see the attached screen pictures.

Initially, I thought something wrong with the ATI TV-out, then I bought a Realmagic xcard with TV-out, which is having exactly the same problem. Afer spoke to tech support, I have ruled out the following problems,

a. different room ground looping problem
b. bad cables connection
c. This problem shows up on all TV output, including video files, PC desktop, DVD movies...

I tested with a friend's scan converter TView Gold, which is also having this kind problem in my home.

I am running out the solutions, where is this noise coming from, from PC? Any solution idea will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

[ac3]

In case the pic attachment is not working, you can see two pics click here:

http://photos.yahoo.com/bc/aaacomputer/vwp?.dir=/&.dnm=1.jpg&.src=ph&.view=t&.hires=t

http://photos.yahoo.com/bc/aaacomputer/vwp?.dir=/&.dnm=2.jpg&.src=ph&.view=t&.hires=t

Thanks a lot for the help!

[avih]

hi.

(i assume you're talking about the diagonal top-right to bottom-left interference yes?)

i've never seen similar interferences before, but it seems like some other frequency is involved that's close, but not the same to another frequency in the system.

i'd suggest to try one of those:

1. try change to ntsc or pal output from your tv card (i hope your tv set supports both)

2. try using a stabilized power source (for tv and/or the pc). i think a UPS should have a more stable power than the power from your electricity system. if one of the deviced does use a UPS, i'd suggest to try to disconnect it, and see if the problem remains.

3. turn off all other electricity devices (especially ones that have low frequency components) and only leave your tv and computer on.

4. try to move your computer to another place and use a different power socket. or even take the computer to someone else's home, and check it there. if the problem remains, try installing your card in a different computer (not at your home), and test again if the problem remains.
hope it helps.
cheers
avi

[Belgabor]

How did you rule out the bad cable problem? And which kind of connection do you use?

Regards
Belgabor

[ac3]

Thanks AVI for the ideas...

NTSC/PAL seems has no influence. They are all set as NTSC. I don't use UPS, I will consider one if this is the cause, but right now reluctant to buy one and see later that it plays no role. I can't identify other electric items in the household that maybe responsible. I tested by puting PC and TV in the same room power circuit and find no effect change. I even disconnected cable TV line-in and did not see improvement. So next I will take my PC to a friend's home to check out tomorrow, and next week try a new pc to TV see what happens.

I ruled out possible cable issue by using the same cable but replace PC with a VCR as the AV source, it plays great, no interfence present. I tried both S-video and composite video cables with the same result. So I suspect something is wrong on my PC?

[chemmajik]

Do you have a attenuator around? Alot of people have had to attenuate because the cable is to strong for the AIW cards. Weird as it may sound, but I've seen 3 people on avs solve it with that method, or the ground loop isolator for others. The more I mess with video the UPS is getting more important for clean power. Just looked at your clips that is weird having angled noise, normally bad cable signal is either vertical or horizontal forget which. Do you have a speaker or pump moter running close by, that looks like a morei like what happens from a magnet. Also most new monitors have a degaus built in the options menu that may help if it was caused by a magnet that originally was near.

[avih]

looking at your pics again, i got to a conclusion it's a higher frequency than i initially thought. i'd say it's in the few MHz range (1-2Mhz) interference, and i can't think of an electrical device that causes these (i calculated this by doing 30(fps)*240(lines)*<50-300>(intererences lines on from left to right). so it could be something inside your computer that generates these frequencies.

but you can still try the rest of chemmajik's and my suggestions.

hope you'll solve this.
cheers
avi

[[NEX]]

have you tried using gold imputs cables?
have you tried a different TV?
also moving your card to a different slot can help.
turn everything off including monitor, just leave the Pc and the TV on running a video (fans or airconditioners too, even lights)
if you dont have interference start turning on thing until you find you problem.

avoid your cable touching power or other cables you can also put that special tape(i forgot its name its black) to the whole cable.
hope this helps.

[ac3]

I have not used any attenuator, I understand there are many different ones on the market. The video cables involved are 25ft long with gold input, I doubt the signal is too strong.

I virtually disconnected all electronic devices (cordless phone, airconditional, fan, lights, etc), they won't help.

The last thing I have not checked is ATI 8500 radio wireless remote, I will try to pull the battery out see it helps, but I doubt it emits interference frequency all the time. But one never knows. Later this week, I will test with a new PC connection, and take the PC's to a friend's home. Thanks all for the help.

[ookzDVD]

@ac3,

try TV Tool (www.tvtool.de)
it has a lot of build-in filter to improve the picture quality.

[chemmajik]

I don't think TVTool is compatible with Radeon cards its a GF only tool. People normally use powerstrip for the radeon or what not.

[wlp5]

Silly think, but it makes a lot of difference in my case.

Turn off your monitor !!!

And also any lights using converters

[ac3]

I finally solved the problem by spending $80 on a monster M-series cable M500v S-video Cable here:

http://www.monstercable.com/productPage.asp?pin=211&mixtype=

The picture is now totally clear, all the noises are gone.

It's strange, the old standard cables plays well on sources like VCR, DVD player etc so I did not identify the problem earlier. I guess ATI TV-out signal has very high requirement.

Thanks all for the wonderful ideas, I learned a lot from you guys!

[yingx2]

The pic is somewhat spooky:scared: