Tong Family

https://support.ati.com/ics/support/KBAnswer.asp?questionID=1271. I’ve been struggling to get my ATI 9800 Pro to connect to my Mitsubishi 73509 television. It is an older thing, but supports 1080i, 540p, 480p and of course 480i.
But, I can’t seem to get it going. This is one of those $30 products with DIP switches. You connect one to the DVI output of the adapter and then you get three component output (YPrPb). Nothing seems to come out.
It didn’t come with a manual and the manual is very hard to find on the ATI site (see above). The net of it is that you have to install the latest ATI Catalyst drivers. These support HDTV modes.
Then on the little thing, you set to ON, all the modes that your TV supports (how does a none techie know this!). In my case, that is setting to ON, switches 1, 2, 5 and 6 for respectively 480i, 480p, 1080i and 16:9 aspect.
Kind of hilariously, the manual says, never set 540p since that mode is never supported by the little gadget (why do they have it then, you might wonder).
Other strange thing is that when you start, you have to have a regular PC monitor in place since Windows doesn’t boot into the right video mode. This has to be plugged into the VGA output side of the 9800.
Then, when the PC boots, you set the HDTV stuff from the PC monitor. Now here is the really magical part:
# Install the latest Catalyst drivers from “ATI”:http://ati.com
# Go to the Catalyst Control Center
# On the Display screen, there is something called the display wizard, you can use this to set resolutions and it will autodetect them.
On a Mitsubishi WS-73903, its an old monitor, announced in 1998 (when it was the cat’s meow by the way) and is gorgeous with 9″ CRTs, but very quirky in its electronics. Specifically, it has two HDTV inputs, the first is the DVD input, this only takes 480i and 480p and then there is a HDTV input that takes 480i, 480p and 1080i. Also, this is a 16:9 display so it locks at full screen when it goes to progressive, so you I actually need the ATI driver to go to 480p anamorphic to work properly. Good luck figuring that out!
Right now, I have my Motorola DCT-5000 settop box hooked up to the HDTV input, so it can display 1080i on HDTV and it is gorgeous, the problem is that with only one 1080i input, I need to figure out use by trusty Denon DS-TX939 reciever. Sigh, this means a bunch of rewiring and reprogramming of remotes, so that I can finally get to:
# DVD input from a dedicated DVD player that shows up as 480p
# Shared 1080i input for the set top box and for my HTPC which is the whole point
Last thing to figure out is how to get 5.1 digital output from my HTPC to the AVR. Right now, it only has 2 channel output, and I’d love 5.1 for all those computer games!