Advise needed!!

[Buzz]

I have followed AR for years, drifting in and out of the forums. I have a finally converted my audio/video musical library to hard drive and am temporarily using an ill fated Dell 5150 to serve as a music server. I used an external M-audio converter for sound - sounds great BTW. But when I connected the notebook VGA port to a Sony XBR3 the picture I got was in a resolution and picture size probably based on the Dell notebook's video card. What is the solution here? I do not have options to zoom into this input on the TV. Shall I buy and external video card? What is the cause, extent and solution? I apologize in advance if this is a repetitive or stupidly simple.

[Rich-n-Texas]

Hi Buzz,

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds like you have 4 separate pieces of hardware: a hard drive storing your music, a Dell Laptop acting as the music server which the HDD is connected to via USB or some other interface, an external sound card and the XBR3 TV. I'm not real familiar with the Dell computer, but I think it's highly unlikely that you'll be able to output the video to a resolution the TV can work with. I don't know what you mean by an external video card (a PCMCIA card?), but my suggestion would be to ditch the laptop, and find another way to get your video to the TV. Are you sending your audio directly to your PC speakers, or to your receiver?

[Buzz]

I changed my profile to list my equipment save the XBR3. The Dell has a poor sound and video card. But it is a sea anchor if it isn't used for this. I used an external sound card and the sound is excellent. But, what kind of external video card will up convert to 1080 from the poor onboard native resolution of the video card?

[Buzz]

Does my signature convert?

[westcott]

Does my signature convert?

What is the highest resolution your video card supports?

I have an old Radeon 9700 Pro that will support 1080i/p so you may be surprised what it will do. But, it is not HDCP compliant so this may be something you should consider if you are trying to put together an HTPC.

Investing more money in an old machine may be a poor investment. Even some of the newest HTPC machines are not that good at video compared to a good quality dedicated DVD player.

You may be willing to sacrifice some quality for convenience but it is an expensive proposition to do it right.