Integrating the All-in-Wonder® Radeon™ 8500DV into Your Home Theater

Video: Several options and more to come The first step in incorporating your PC into a home theater setup is sending a video output to your television. The All-in-Wonder® Radeon™ 8500DV comes equipped with a breakout box offering both composite (RCA) and S-Video outputs. Additionally, a DVI-I to component (YPrPb) connector will soon be available for use with televisions supporting the component interface. Compared to composite (a one-channel signal carrying chrominance, luminance, picture, and synchronization information) and S-Video (splits chrominance and luminance information into separate signals), the component connector divides the signal into red, green, and blue channels for the highest-quality video. Additionally, YPrPb support is provided for a non-interlaced display on a big-screen television. Once you have chosen the best connection available for your television (component, S-Video, or composite, in descending order), you can then adjust the quality of the video output through the Displays property page. Brightness, contrast, saturation, hue and gamma slider controls are all available during video playback, allowing you to interactively fine-tune the picture quality without having to guess and check. Moreover, once adjustments have been made to the overlay, they can be individually reset back to their default values, making it easy to switch between two output devices for watching movies. Since adjustments often differ between televisions and monitor displays, individual size/position controls are available for each device, and are accessible though the Displays property page. Adding further to the flexibility of the All-in-Wonder® Radeon™ 8500DV is a configurable display setting that allows you to set either a television or VGA monitor as the primary output. Changing the television to the primary display (in the advanced Display property box) and enabling the expanded desktop (under Settings, in the Display Properties) allows you to watch TV, view a DVD or watch a video file on the television while browsing the Internet or using a word processor on the VGA monitor. If you'd prefer big-screen gaming, the monitor display can be cloned on the television, allowing you enjoy the benefits of a large viewing area and surround sound audio system without having the hassle of re-wiring your home theater.