All About Symbian's series on the Nokia N95's TV Out feature draws to a close with Part 6: a summing up of the main problems that TV Out suffers from, and how these problems could be overcome. If you've missed any of the previous installments, there are now links to them at the top of each article in the series.
Read on in the full article.
another point to mention is that you cant play games fullscreen on the t.v. with th keypad slide open which for sum games is a must.A good example of this if fifa 07.there should be an option to play the game fullscreen with the keypad slide open. I just havnt got round to buying a B.T. keyboard yet.
"another point to mention is that you cant play games fullscreen on the t.v. with th keypad slide open which for sum games is a must.A good example of this if fifa 07.there should be an option to play the game fullscreen with the keypad slide open. I just havnt got round to buying a B.T. keyboard yet."
I hadn't thought of that, as I was using a Bluetooth keyboard, but you're absolutely right. The N95 doesn't let you use the keypad in horizontal mode, so it makes a lot of games impossible to play in horizontal TV mode if you don't have a keyboard.
This is yet another reason for having a Bluetooth joypad. 😊
That's not totally true some games work in full screen. eg pgr racing brothers in arms fr bubble to name a few i've got on my n95.
"That's not totally true some games work in full screen. eg pgr racing brothers in arms fr bubble to name a few i've got on my n95."
I think the original poster means full screen as in taking up most of the TV screen. Frozen Bubble only works in vertical mode, so when you plug it into the TV it only occupies a small column in the middle.
You have to play games in horizontal mode if you want the picture to occupy most of the TV.
I would also add to that list of being able to set a default viewing mode (landscape or portrait for TV-Out). Landscape works best, but without a BT keyboard or pointing device, one is back to portrait, and the TV will reflect that. I wonder if that is something that could be seperately controlled by the GPU, making this at least a good bit more usable.
I second the option for the phone screen being off when in TV-Out mode, that seems like a waste unless one is tapping about on their screen. If showing a gallery show/movie/playing music, then having the screen on is a good bit of a waste.
Two words: Higher resolution.
That's all I need to make me happe, imagine the s60 browser outputing in hd to your tv, you could view almost any page without scrolling.
Yup, higher res was top of my list too.
One other suggestion: make TV out an option on the E90! That is the one [hardware] feature which I would really want to see added to what is otherwise my current dream device. Obviously, there is the point that its screen is already larger than that of any other 'phone', so it is less necessary; I'd still like to have it though.
On a related note, is there any reason why someone could not design a device which would accept screens exported by Bluetooth from devices which support this (such as my E61), but instead of a projector, drive a composite (or better) TV output jack? I assume that the existing BT screen export functionality lacks the bandwidth for full-motion video or gaming; I have not yet had access to an appropriate projector to try it. Even if it did not, it should still allow one to use productivity software on a larger number of existing devices with a TV set, and have the advantage of being wireless.
Has anyone had a go at trying to play videos and such by exporting to a BT projector?
This would be uber cool if it worked with n95.. and in theory it should..
(ok, I can't post links, so google 'projector keyboard bluetooth' for the link)
I couldn't ever see myself dragging a full size keyboard around just for my phone, may as well take a small laptop. What would be awsome would be if the n96/97/etc had one of these built into it.. now I'm really dreaming.. 😊
"I couldn't ever see myself dragging a full size keyboard around just for my phone"
The keyboard is barely bigger than the phone when it's folded up, and weighs about the same. Bluetooth keyboards are usually extremely compact. But I think you're missing the bigger point I was trying to make.
The main point I was trying to make was that phones could soon start to replace desktop computers, not just portable computers. Far, far more people on the planet own mobiles phones and televisions than PCs, so if phones start to get TV Out and smartphone features as standard, then they could easily become the most common form of computing. It would become even more probable if phones get higher resolutions and become compatible with pointing devices such as bluetooth mice.
"On a related note, is there any reason why someone could not design a device which would accept screens exported by Bluetooth from devices which support this (such as my E61),"
Interesting idea. If it could contain the same graphical processing chip that is built into the N95 and N93, perhaps it might be able to give it full TV Out abilities.
This may become irrelevant in the future though as more and more phones include the relevant TV Out graphics chip (which also accelerates 3D graphics).