Untitled Document

1. About TVTool

TVTool is a control center for the TV output of nVidia graphics cards. With this tool it is possible to adapt the TV output perfectly to your needs and to control the TV mode in a comfortable way. TVTool accesses the hardware directly and is able to offer a significant greater functionality and picture quality than most standard graphics card driver.

This includes the adjustment of the picture size and simultaneous output to TV and monitor. Also important parameters like color, contrast and flickerfilter can be set to obtain best picture quality. It is also possible to turn off the Macrovision signal and to use a number of comfortable features like saving the position of the desktop icons, automatic adjustment of sound parameters, a zoom window and a number of hotkeys.

2. Requirements

To use TVTool these requirements must be met:

The graphics card must be based on a nVidia chipset (TNT-1 or later).
These TV chips are supported: BT868, BT869, CX25870, CX25871, CH7003-7008, SAA7102, SAA7104 and SAA7108
The operating system must be Windows 95, 98, Me, NT4, Windows 2000 or XP.

The following restrictions apply at the moment:

Secondary graphics cards (BIOS adjustment) are not supported yet.
TwinView (GeForce2-MX and GeForce4 only) is not supported yet.
GF4-MX: The internal TV encoder chip NV17 is not supported
GF4 with a digitally connected (DVI) TFT display is not supported yet

3. Installation

To install the program just run the SETUP.EXE. The program group TVTool 6.8 will be created in the start menu. The help file can be started by clicking the question mark in the TVTool title bar or by using the shortcut in the program group.

Under NT4, Win2000 and XP administrator rights are required for the installation. TVTool must be started one time with these rights. After that it can run with normal rights, too. If the directory changes in which the application is installed it might be necessary to use admin rights again.

To uninstall the tool please run the ClearRegistry.exe which is part of the package. This will delete all registry entries made by TVTool. This utility can also be used to set the program to its default state. Then run UNINSTALL to delete the program completely from your PC. TVTool does not change anything in the graphics card driver nor in any other parts of the system.

4. First steps

After the tool is started you see the dialog window of TVTool. If you get no error message TVTool has found the required hardware in your system and it is ready to use. To check this have a look on the config tab. Under Hardware Detection you will see the type of your graphics adapter and the TV chip used.

TVTool supports different languages which are used to display the dialog window and all messages. Press the 'more options' button and you can select the language.

Please change back to the 'Mode' tab. Select the TV-format which is used in your country (Europe: PAL, USA: NTSC). Select 800x600 as resolution and fullscreen as picture size. To get a picture on the monitor during TV mode the option 'Dualview' should be turned on, too. (You will get a warning message, that your monitor must support low frequencies.)

Now it´s time to turn on TV mode. This is done with the green button in the upper right corner of the dialog window. When everything works properly you should get a picture on TV and on the monitor. The refresh rate of the monitor is the same rate the TV uses (PAL 50Hz, NTSC 60Hz) during TV mode. Therefore the picture flickers much. To quit the TV mode you can press the green button again or you can use the hotkey, which is CTRL-F2 by default.

If you get a b/w picture only you should check the configuration of the outputs on the 'Adjust' tab. In most cases you will get a color picture if composite is selected. More possible reasons for a b/w picture can be found in the online FAQ.

To conclude the TV mode you can either press the green button again or you use the appropriate hotkey, this is CTRL-F2 on default.

Hint: The dialog window of TVTool can be moved by dragging any point within the window with the right mouse button. This is helpful during TV mode when you might not see the title bar because of the low resolution.