Laptop to TV Connection Issue

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JesseM

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I have a Dell Precision M70 laptop with Windows XP. It has an nVidia Quadro FX Go1400 video card, which means it has a plug in the back and came with a cable that allows video out in the form of analog video (RCA), component video (YPbPr), and S-video. Analog video out is shared with Pb out.

I have been using the normal analog video (yellow cable) connection with my HDTV and have obviously been disappointed with the image quality. Today I bought a component cable (YCbCr) and hooked up the laptop and TV. What I get on the TV is a purple picture.

It seems as though the Cr connection is not being recognized. When I unplug the Cr cable nothing changes, but when I unplug either of the other two cables the picture changes/goes away.

I tested the new component cable with my progressive scan DVD player, and it worked just fine. I thought there was a possibility that something labeled YPbPr would not be compatible with a YCbCr cable, but in the case of my DVD player they were compatible.

I'm stumped, any of you have an idea? Thanks!
 
Can you try using the old component cable from your DVD player on your laptop and see what happens? This would pinpoint if its the cable or the laptop acting up, but I have to admit its rather unlikely with a component cable to have that issue regardless of what color its "supposed" to be carrying over that line.
 
My DVD player originally had a composite cable, not component. I'm fairly sure the problem lies somewhere within the video card's handling of the type of video signal sent out of the laptop. Going through my laptop's display settings, I found an option for changing the video signal between composite, S-video and "auto select", but there was no option for component. Auto select was the default.
 
Try S-Video, its more likely to work than composite would. I'd assume if there isn't more than those options, the auto select is probably only picking between the two. If that doesn't work you might have to end up using one of those ridiculously expensive VGA to Component adapters.
 
I'd rather not spend money on an S-video cable when the quality is not much better than RCA. I know that when I plug in the component cable and set my laptop to "auto select" it gives me 2/3 of the component signal. When I set it to S-video or analog it gives me different pictures (still with the component video plugged in).

Might there be another way to control the video output other than going through the nVidia control panel?
 
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