I own a Tivo and I’m looking to turn my computer monitor into a display/tv screen which my tivo can be played on. Is there some sort of converter or hookup that I can use to turn my monitor into a display to watch tivo on?
Hope it’s not too confusing
Assuming your TiVo (I know little about it) outputs a standard baseband (yellow RCA jack) or S-video signal, all you need is a video capture card for your PC and the software to watch it, which probably comes with the card.
If it’s not a laptop (i.e. the screen is separate), it’s even easier than that. Check the back of the monitor for an S-Video port (most recent LCD monitors have them), and use the cable that came with your Tivo to hook up. If you’ve got a very recent Tivo and Monitor, you may be able to do the same thing with HDMI (which also came with the Tivo).
If the monitor only has VGA and DVI ports, you can get adaptors for SVideo-to-VGA or HDMI - to - VGA, depending on your Tivo’s capabilities, but you’ll have to buy those separately.
A few monitors also take component (R, G, B) or composite (yellow) connectors. You guessed it, these came with your Tivo (not the component if it’s a pre-HD Tivo). Sound may or may not be a problem; if your monitor doesn’t have speakers, you’ll need to run the Red/White RCA ports to a speaker system somewhere.
In any of these cases, the computer never has to get involved at all. You may need to find the magic sequence of button pushes for your monitor that gets it to change inputs, though. (Mine is a single button on the front, but some other monitors I’ve used you have to go through the menus).
Of course, if you want to watch TV while using other applications on the computer, you indeed need some kind of capture card (an analog TV card would be enough) and software. You could get something like this, which is the exact model I use in my computer, with the S-video in from the DVR to the card and the audio going directly into the sound card, bypassing the TV card.