This is one of those hybrid IMHO and GQ type topics.
I’ll start the thread here, and see where it goes.
I’m in the market for an HDTV, minimum 42".
I see that they all seem to boast PC input.
Who does this?
i.e. is this ever done on a living room (or media room) TV for example?
How?
it’s another LONG cable coming from the TV to (presumably) a PC.
Again, in my living room/media room situation, I can’t see getting a lot of other use out of the PC except as a dedicated feed to the huge ass monior
Are there any websites that go into more detail on how this might typically be used?
I use that specific setup for my HTPC (home theater PC). Think of it as a TIVO +. It lets me record my shows (up to four different ones at the same time), watch internet content (video podcasts, internet TV), and holds all my frequently viewed DVD movies/downloaded clips and videos/family vids, etc. It also streams to my extender in the bedroom so I have access to all of the same media from another TV.
Outside of a home theater PC setup like mine, I don’t know why anyone would do this. The resolution on anything but a 1080p screen sucks compared to a PC monitor, and even 1080p’s pixel density is usually very small compared to a monitor, not very cool when you’re close to the TV, that’s for sure. The PC, btw, is right under the TV itself in an open cabinet.
Come to think of it, before I had a dedicated HTPC I did use my regular PC’s TV output to connect to the TV for occasional internet TV/movie watching.
I have a 42" lcd in my bedroom, and a desktop computer in the next room which is my office. I have a vga cable going through the wall of the two rooms to hook the equipment together. I use the computer as a multimedia center as I have many dvds copied to the harddrive, and thousands of songs. That way I can watch what I want without hunting through 6 dvd wallets. I have a radio control remote that operates the computer so I can pause, rewind etc. from the bedroom. An infra red remote would not be able to do this without repeaters.
The vga cables don’t carry signals over distances well. There is some ghosting on the lcd even though I use a signal booster. If my desktop had an HDMI port, that would probably solve that problem. Most of this equipment is a bit of an experiment and I have had to play with it quite a bit to make it work.
I have a 42" Plasma that has a 1024x768 resolution. The trouble with that resolution is it’s a 4:3 width:height ratio, but the screen itself is 16:9. So I never could find a way to display PC content on it that didn’t look stretched horizontally. So watch out for that.
A better resolution would be 137?x768 or 1920x1080, even then you’d need to sit fairly close. And I’d get a LCD, plasma usually has richer color but is not as sharp.
Use Powerstrip to make a custom rsolution to exactly match the capabilities of your display device. But I wouldn’t suggest using any plasma as a computer monitor due to the risk of burn-in.
I have a 46’’ LCD, 1080p HDTV that is always attached to my main computer. The TV sits on the “entertainment center” (actually a nice looking dresser; the drawers contain DVDs, computer games, etc.) and the computer sits on the floor nearby. The video is connected with an HDMI cable, but the audio through a simple PC audio cable. (If I had been smarter, I could have gotten a video card that supported the audio portion of HDMI for just a bit more $ … but I wasn’t smarter.)
I have a wireless keyboard and mouse. So I sit my lazy butt on the couch and check my email, or put on a movie on Netflix, or play some Diablo II / StarCraft / whatever. If I want to watch a DVD I have to get up and put it in the DVD drive, but someday maybe I’ll get a few external harddrives and rip my meager DVD collection to them.
The TV is used solely as a monitor (and to make my friends envious). I don’t have TV service of any kind currently. I don’t know of any sites that discuss typical setups or usages. But if you haven’t already checked out Newegg.com, I recommend you do so. That’s where I got both my TV and computer.
I have an oldish tower hooked up to my smallish HDTV via VGA.
This PC is a file server/media center/game box. (Infrequently for PC games, more often console/arcade games in emulation. Sometimes it’ll do as a second machine for LAN play.)
I have an almost identical setup in the livingroom, with a plain old 29" NTSC CRT and a TV in/out card… Forget looking at the internet on that setup - but it’s just fine for old Kids in the Hall episodes, or a little bit of Metal Slug – or even if someone wants to get in on a little Quake and doesn’t mind the poor resolution.
I’m invisioning a setup where I have a computer with a very small footprint hooked into the HDTV. The computer is connected to my home wireless network, and ultimately to the internet.
Things I think I’d like to use the HDTV for:
Internet usage.
i.e. Occasionally checking my email, if I don’t have my laptop handy. (wireless keyboard & mouse/remote? )
Viewing youtube type videos
Easy place to view photos with a group of people.
*Watch video that is stored on my computer.
Listen to music stored somewhere on my network (some flavor of media player?)
Other reasons that I’m sure I haven’t thought of yet.
One of the problems seems to be with resolution. What’s the problem with resolution? What ways are there to get around it?
Hey Larry, I wanted to enter the emulation world to play some old school original NES games on my PC. Do you have any recommendations? And also, are original NES games officially or unofficially abandon ware, or would it be illegal for me to download them?
I think the mods frown on this topic a bit. A lot of these old Nintendo games are being made available commercially for the Wii’s “Virtual Console,” so they are definitely not abandonware. I think even if you have a “fair use” right to a specific game, TPTB would prefer it if we didn’t talk about it, as the same information that would allow you to play it could be used by anyone, in violation of the law.