# Replacing my television with my monitor

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/replacing-my-television-with-my-monitor/259109>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [August 9, 2004, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/replacing-my-television-with-my-monitor/259109 "2004-08-09T22:50:12Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Fiona\_Orange](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/7feea3/32.png) [@Fiona\_Orange](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiona_Orange)\
**Post date:** [August 9, 2004, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/replacing-my-television-with-my-monitor/259109/1 "2004-08-09T22:50:12Z")

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In just over a room, I’m moving from my gigantic room to a teeny dorm room, which I’ll be sharing with another person. Quite the change. Space will definately be a problem, so I’m thinking of eliminating my televison to save space. Here’s where you come in:

My idea is to use my computer monitor as my television. Surely, there is an easy way to do this. I need to be able to do the following on my monitor, _without having to unplug it:_

Watch DVD movies (already have a DVD drive)  
Play my PS2/Dreamcast  
Watch cable TV

Is there some sort of hardware adapter, or new video card I can get to make this upgrade? I don’t mind buying a new video card, although I’d like it if the card were something better than the Geforce3 Ti500 I have running currently. Any quick solutions for the problem?

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**Author:** ![galt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/35a633/32.png) [@galt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/galt)\
**Post date:** [August 10, 2004, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/replacing-my-television-with-my-monitor/259109/2 "2004-08-10T00:01:38Z")

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You want something like [this](http://www.viewsonic.com/products/tventertainment/tvvideoprocessors/vb50hrtv/). I’m sure other manufacturers make similar products.

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**Author:** ![DWMarch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dwmarch/32/1010_2.png) [@DWMarch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DWMarch)\
**Post date:** [August 10, 2004, 6:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/replacing-my-television-with-my-monitor/259109/3 "2004-08-10T06:35:51Z")

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I used an ATI TV tuner to watch TV on my computer. It’s just a PCI card with a coaxial input on it. The picture quality is decent (the ISA cards had PERFECT picture but the PCI ones seem to be a little worse) and since it’s a coaxial input you can probably hook the video games system up to it. IIRC, these TV cards cost about $70-80 CDN.

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**Author:** ![voltaire](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voltaire/32/313_2.png) [@voltaire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/voltaire)\
**Post date:** [August 10, 2004, 7:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/replacing-my-television-with-my-monitor/259109/4 "2004-08-10T07:59:49Z")

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What you want is an ATI All-in-Wonder card:  
[http://www.ati.com/products/multimedia.html](http://www.ati.com/products/multimedia.html)