Netbook to 50" plasma. Tweaking the settings. Help.

Esh

I'd like to connect my Asus 1005HA netbook to my 50" Panasonic G10 for some Hulu watching on the big screen. What'll happen? I can go VGA -> VGA, I'm just wondering if it'll look okay or if the poor little netbook will assplode trying to output to the giant TV.

Thanks!

saltiness

I'd imagine the worst thing that could happen is the netbook won't be able to output at the TV's native resolution. Might as well just try it.

Thanatos

I virtually guarantee the netbook won't be able to output at the TV's native resolution.

I think it will probably work, just look like complete and utter crap.

Gabriel_Pitt

Actually, it wouldn't surprise me if it look just fine. I was doing that with my uncle's huge ass plasma (I don't think it was a 50" but it was up in the forties somewhere) and the picture looked just as good on the TV as it did on the small screen. You might need to fiddle with the resolution, or it might work right out of the box. Either way, it's not like anything is going to detonate.

Captain Vash

you won't damage anything, but I'm imagining it'll look pretty bad.

(I'd be incredibly suprised if any netbook could output anything at 1920x1080)

Esh

Asplode was figurative.

I'm not looking for 1080p or anything. Just watchable.

Gabriel_Pitt

Like I said, it should be more than watchable.

shugarae

Captain Vash wrote: »

you won't damage anything, but I'm imagining it'll look pretty bad.

(I'd be incredibly suprised if any netbook could output anything at 1920x1080)

my netbook puts out (ha!) 1920x1080 just fine when hooked to my HDTV o_O I use it to stream netflix...

I have an acer aspire one something or another, fwiw.

Esh

shugarae wrote: »

Captain Vash wrote: »

you won't damage anything, but I'm imagining it'll look pretty bad.

(I'd be incredibly suprised if any netbook could output anything at 1920x1080)

my netbook puts out (ha!) 1920x1080 just fine when hooked to my HDTV o_O I use it to stream netflix...

I have an acer aspire one something or another, fwiw.

Integrated graphics? Good to know. I'll order up a cable soon.

MushroomStick

Just have the netbook output at whatever resolution the video is at and let the tv stretch it the rest of the way. It'll probably look about like how standard res tv looks, maybe even a little better if it gives a 480p source.

Bionic Monkey

shugarae wrote: »

Captain Vash wrote: »

you won't damage anything, but I'm imagining it'll look pretty bad.

(I'd be incredibly suprised if any netbook could output anything at 1920x1080)

my netbook puts out (ha!) 1920x1080 just fine when hooked to my HDTV o_O I use it to stream netflix...

I have an acer aspire one something or another, fwiw.

It's not technically a netbook, but I just hooked my Dell 11z up to a 1080p TV last night, and it worked perfectly.

Esh

Ok, so I got the cables I need and I plugged it all in. Set the TV to the "PC" Input, but nothing happens. What exactly do I need to do from the Control Panel to make it work? I was able to extend the desktop to the TV, but that's not what I need. I need it ON the TV. What am I doing wrong here? The TV is a Panasonic G10 50". Thanks!

Dman

Esh wrote: »

Ok, so I got the cables I need and I plugged it all in. Set the TV to the "PC" Input, but nothing happens. What exactly do I need to do from the Control Panel to make it work? I was able to extend the desktop to the TV, but that's not what I need. I need it ON the TV. What am I doing wrong here? The TV is a Panasonic G10 50". Thanks!

Some laptops have a fn (function) button that makes the f1-f12 keys do different things. if there is a picture of a screen on one of your f1-f12 keys and a function button on your keyboard trying holding down the fn button and taping the f4 (or whichever it is) button.

it sets the computer to output the display to the cable instead of the netbooks screen.

Esh

Dman wrote: »

Esh wrote: »

Ok, so I got the cables I need and I plugged it all in. Set the TV to the "PC" Input, but nothing happens. What exactly do I need to do from the Control Panel to make it work? I was able to extend the desktop to the TV, but that's not what I need. I need it ON the TV. What am I doing wrong here? The TV is a Panasonic G10 50". Thanks!

Some laptops have a fn (function) button that makes the f1-f12 keys do different things. if there is a picture of a screen on one of your f1-f12 keys and a function button on your keyboard trying holding down the fn button and taping the f4 (or whichever it is) button.

it sets the computer to output the display to the cable instead of the netbooks screen.

Worked like a charm.

And my little Asus runs Hulu at full screen on the 50" perfectly and it looks great.

Folken Fanel

Esh wrote: »

Dman wrote: »

Esh wrote: »

Ok, so I got the cables I need and I plugged it all in. Set the TV to the "PC" Input, but nothing happens. What exactly do I need to do from the Control Panel to make it work? I was able to extend the desktop to the TV, but that's not what I need. I need it ON the TV. What am I doing wrong here? The TV is a Panasonic G10 50". Thanks!

Some laptops have a fn (function) button that makes the f1-f12 keys do different things. if there is a picture of a screen on one of your f1-f12 keys and a function button on your keyboard trying holding down the fn button and taping the f4 (or whichever it is) button.

it sets the computer to output the display to the cable instead of the netbooks screen.

Worked like a charm.

And my little Asus runs Hulu at full screen on the 50" perfectly and it looks great.

As an owner of the same exact TV I'm curious as to how great it looks. SDTV good?

Esh

Folken Fanel wrote: »

Esh wrote: »

Dman wrote: »

Esh wrote: »

Ok, so I got the cables I need and I plugged it all in. Set the TV to the "PC" Input, but nothing happens. What exactly do I need to do from the Control Panel to make it work? I was able to extend the desktop to the TV, but that's not what I need. I need it ON the TV. What am I doing wrong here? The TV is a Panasonic G10 50". Thanks!

Some laptops have a fn (function) button that makes the f1-f12 keys do different things. if there is a picture of a screen on one of your f1-f12 keys and a function button on your keyboard trying holding down the fn button and taping the f4 (or whichever it is) button.

it sets the computer to output the display to the cable instead of the netbooks screen.

Worked like a charm.

And my little Asus runs Hulu at full screen on the 50" perfectly and it looks great.

As an owner of the same exact TV I'm curious as to how great it looks. SDTV good?

Basically. Yeah, SDTV good. I watched something on Frontline (off of PBS' site) and it was slightly lesser quality, but VERY watchable.

Captain Vash

Color me impressed.

Esh

Captain Vash wrote: »

Color me impressed.

It's not outputting at 1920*1080 (haven't tested that yet), but at the lower 1080 compatible resolution (can't remember) and it looks just fine.

Enc

Esh wrote: »

I'd like to connect my Asus 1005HA netbook to my 50" Panasonic G10 for some Hulu watching on the big screen. What'll happen? I can go VGA -> VGA, I'm just wondering if it'll look okay or if the poor little netbook will assplode trying to output to the giant TV.

Thanks!

I do this with Crunchyroll on a 15" laptop and my 40" tv with little to no problems. VGA->VGA.

Should be fine, sometimes can get wonky with resolutions/not loading properly, lag.

saltiness

Esh wrote: »

Captain Vash wrote: »

Color me impressed.

It's not outputting at 1920*1080 (haven't tested that yet), but at the lower 1080 compatible resolution (can't remember) and it looks just fine.

That's really not surprising at all. Screen size has nothing to do with graphics power. It's all about resolution. If you can get the netbook to play smooth video at 1920x1080 that will be impressive.

Esh

Does anyone know what the proper "step down" resolution from 1920*1080 is in case that chokes my Netbook?

vonPoonBurGer

Resolution isn't the issue, because basic 2D hasn't been a bottleneck in years and years. The place where you'll possibly run into problems with netbooks and Hulu/Netflix streams is in the decoding of high-bitrate streams, e.g. the 720p streams. Up until relatively recently, all of these Flash/Silverlight services were doing all the decoding in software, which is pretty CPU-intensive. Netbooks based on the Intel Atom CPU were known to drop frames when trying to decode these rich streams for full-screen playback, but the same stream would play Ok in a window (either because there's some performance savings in decoding a stream to a smaller final frame size, or maybe because the windowed version if a lower-bitrate stream? not sure which).

Both Hulu/Flash and Netflix/Silverlight have seen updates in the past year or so that add hardware support, but a) I don't know if netbooks can take advantage of that and b) if they can, I don't know if it'd be enough to allow for smooth full-screen playback of 720p streams. Decoding a 1080p stream or file would almost certainly be right off the table. My guess is that the integrated video in most netbooks doesn't offer hardware video decoding, otherwise why would people be adding hardware decoder chips to their netbooks?

Esh

I set the Netbook and TV to "clone" each other (so I can use the laptop screen at the same time) and set the resolution to 1920*1080. It works on the Netbook screen (though I have to scroll around on it) but the TV stays black. Any ideas?