Using Your TV as a Monitor? 53
bpm140 asks: "I'm interested in turning my spare PC into an MP3 server, but unless I can hook it up to my home theater system, it's not really worth the effort. My biggest requirement is that I can view the desktop on my TV. Right now I'm limited to S-video, but in the future I plan on upgrading to HDTV. What are my options for getting legible text on my current TV? Any specific video card I should look at?" Are there any HDTV units in the pipe that may make this easier than it is now with current TVs? I've seen televisions with VGA inputs, before, but for the life of me, I can't remember who makes them.
Mitsubishi HDTV (Score:2)
Although I haven't tried using it for anything more than that geeky gratification of knowing that my toy is pretty damn cool, it should work well.
Re:Mitsubishi HDTV (Score:2)
I also have a old 27" Sony PVM monitor that takes RGB SCART input and is great for the PS2 and normal TV, but it also has a digital TTL input, which apparently only does 640x200, i guess you'd use a CGA card or something to drive it. Wierd.
Both of them weigh over 60kgs apiece, but the Sony has a great, high dynamic range picture which puts most TVs, even fancy new digital 100hz models to shame.
The Mitsi has an annoying ground loop or something which makes it's built-in amp put a lot of noise out to it's speakers, but otherwise it's a sweet monitor too.
Build your own (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Build your own (Score:2, Informative)
First PC (Score:1)
The Atrai used a TV for its monitor. Apple provides on all their laptops an s-video out and even some of their desktops.
I have a 17" Samsung (SyncMaster 170MP) flat screen TV/monitor that I use on my PowerBook TI.
Re:First PC (Score:4, Funny)
The Atrai used a TV for its monitor.
Do you understand the difference between 40x25 16-color text and 1280x1024
Re:First PC (Score:1, Funny)
nVidia (Score:3, Informative)
I think that for HDTV, your best bet might be to find a display with VGA input. As for that, Princeton makes a line of fairly pricey displays that look just like TV's, but with every imaginable connection available. I don't know if they've broken into the HDTV market yet.
--Matthew
Run away! Run away! (Score:1)
Re:Run away! Run away! (Score:1)
Wasn't that the law? I've been doing it since 9/11.
ATI Radeon 8500s can output to HDTV. (Score:4, Informative)
ATI fairly recently came out with an adapter [ati.com] to let their Radeon 8500 cards output to HDTV. Anandtech has a brief review of it [anandtech.com].
HD15 (PC VGA) to Component Video Converter (Score:3, Insightful)
I can't seem to find any right now, but I know I've seen them before on pricewatch. Make sure your video card can output a mode compatible with HDTV (the converters I saw usually did 1024x768).
A converter like this will allow you to run at significantly higher resolutions than your average S-Video cable can seem to provide.
--MonMotha
I've been doing this... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:I've been doing this... (Score:1)
And thus soon to be illegal under the DMCA/SSSCA.
Don't do it... (Score:1)
I would assume that regular TV screens would look even more horrible, and can only recomend that you give up now. I ended up buying another monitor and using the system as a media box for my *ahem* legally acquired movie clips. Even use as an mp3 server was impossible since standard text gets completely garbled by a TV, making reading song names a huge pain.
Re:Don't do it... (Score:2, Interesting)
You've been misled. 800x600 is the highest native resolution the Gateway Destination (31") supports - and some only supported 640x480. However, it's possible to scale down higher resolution images to display them, but obviously you're going to lose an enormous amount of detail scaling down from 1600x1200, which is quadruple the resolution.
The reason the Destination sucks is the low native resolution combined with the large physical size of the screen, making for relatively few, large pixels which need to be viewed from some distance.
If the screen truly had a 1600x1200 resolution and a 31" size, it would be quite usable. However, it still wouldn't be nearly as good as a smaller 1600x1200 monitor viewed from a closer distance.
resolutions (Score:1)
Philips TV/PC Monitors (Score:4, Interesting)
I've read a recent review of this model in Empire Magazine (UK) [empireonline.co.uk] and it sounds like a dream.
Check out some of the features:
Also reviewed were the similar Bush LC-15 (£700, 2/5 stars) and the LG RE-15LA30 (£700, 4/5 stars).
Hope that helps.
Re:Philips TV/PC Monitors (Score:2)
Re:Philips TV/PC Monitors (Score:2)
Follow the link. It's a 15in. TFT flat panel, not a CRT. You get what you pay for.
Re:Philips TV/PC Monitors (Score:2)
A 15" TFT monitor costs about £150, add a £100 digital tuner.
Re:Philips TV/PC Monitors (Score:2)
A poor quality 15in. TFT screen might cost you £150 (even then I doubt it, want to provide an example? I couldn't find any.*) but this screen was particularly lauded for it's picture (and sound) quality. Now I wouldn't argue for a second that the reviewer at Empire is the foremost authority on TFT displays but, if he's reviewing a TV/PC monitor, it's fair to assume that he knows the difference between a bad picture and a good one. Which, I guess, is the most important thing to consider when talking about something that you're going to stare at for long periods of time.
This TFT includes a top-notch (again, according to the reviewer) speaker system, custom picture-in-picture software, other inputs, etc. And, something that you're perhaps overlooking, it's a stand-alone device that will work with any PC - the oldest, least impressive desktop or laptop will do. So, we're a far way away from a basic, no-name flat panel.
Of course the price is at a premium right now. These kind of devices offering simple, elegant TV/PC interaction aren't mass market solutions at the moment - when they are their prices will reflect that.
Early adopters/people who can't wait to have the latest thing accept that their paying a price premium now to have something that will be cheaper. It's not for everyone and, obviously, it's not for you. However, it might be just the right thing for others.
Just because you wouldn't buy it that doesn't make it any less valid a solution.
(* I looked for at TFTs priced between £100 and £300 at www.dabs.com [dabs.com], probably the UK's biggest PC retailer. The cheapest 15in. flat panel that they had available was at £265 excluding VAT, £311 including. Coincidentally, this was a Philips 150S, the display that their TV/PC display is based on. The price excluding VAT of the 150MT is £586, a difference of £321 - a lot less than you're suggesting. Even then, we're comparing the a cheap street price of one monitor to the manufacturer's quoted price of another. If you want to make comparisons, by all means do so, but please make sure that you're comparisons are real and valid and that you're not comparing apples to oranges.)
Plasma Screens (Score:1)
VGA to NTSC adapter (Score:1)
I also figured that I really wanted to be outputting the VGA signal and not NTSC. The box is a hack until displays progress to be large w/ high resolution and directly accept VGA.
The box I got can theoretically go up to 1600x1200
Don't go for small fonts (Score:2, Insightful)
I wouldn't recommend playing PC games on a TV though (which might be tempting if you already have the PC hooked up) unless you have a much better TV card than me.
Make the font bigger (Score:1)
There is nothing like being able to bring up more than a hundred gigs of anime without having to get up to change a disk.
Amiga 1084 monitors work well for this... (Score:1)
Just get you a VGA to SVideo/Composite cable (y cable) and you're in business.
You can usually get 1084s off eBay for around 50 bucks.
Hope this helps.
Matrox G400 (Score:1)
Works like a charm.
Add a cordless keyboard, mouse, and a dvd rom drive and you will have a system that impresses most of your guests with your technical savy.
PS The G400 might be out of production. The current model I thing is G450 Dual head.
Re:Matrox G400 (Score:2)
TV is easy, but get a decent sound card (Score:1)
The main thing is make sure the sound card doesn't put out some massive transients when the computer powers up - because sooner or later you'd somehow end up with amp up at high volume and get that potentially speaker damaging pop when you turn on the computer. That or use a digital link for the audio signal.
But the problem is, most MP3's downloaded off the net sound rather crappy.
ask avs (Score:1)
TV as monitor (Score:1)
You can then replace this with a higher definition screen when the opportunity arises.
If on the other hand you want to do other things (e.g. web surfing etc.) on it then you probably need to go for a more complicated setup. The bottom line is that PCs (Linux and yes, even Windows) are very customisable and although 640x480 isn't pretty, it's usable for some things.
If that's not acceptable, then SuSE has very good accessibility features - get yourself a Braille board and learn to use that and then you can just watch whatevers on cable.
If none of these are suitable, watch MTV
Scan Converter (Score:3, Interesting)
(It plugs into any vga monitor port and converts to a video signal.)
Now of course this is not a good solution for someone looking to do actual work on a TV, but for people considering getting a video card with TV out for watching movies and playing games, (which is why I am reading this article,) it has some definite advantages:
remarkably well - better, in fact than the TV -out on my Guillemot card which only works in Windows. (Plus, my card supports Macrovision, which means that I cannot 'back up' my DVDs to tape.)
This would be perfect for someone wanting to convert an old box into a low-cost networked video player and MP3 player - Winamp in 'double-size' mode would be perfectly usable on any decent TV.
Someone had suggested one of these to me a while back and I thought it a stupid idea - I assumed that integrated video-out on an expensive card *must* be better.
I was wrong.
Hope this is useful to someone...
Cheers,
Jim in Tokyo