PC on TV...How good?

[soad1789]

Hey, does anybody here use a TV as a monitor for their PC? I'm still not sure how they hook up to PCs, can you use the Red white and yellow cable connection (coaxial) to hook it up? And how reliable/efficient is it? I was thinking of building a small portable computer and if I bought a monitor it would double the current price and exceed my budget what i wanted to do was buy a computer for my music, dvds and tv and have the display on a tv...is this a good/lame idea? i really need to figure out what svideo connections are! any help is appreciated!

[f1oored]

First off, bad idea.
TV resolution sucks so it is going to be hard to read anything. TV are also high radiation unlike monitors which are low. Sit right next to a tv for a while and you are not only going to have a headache but you are probably going to develope cancer down the road.

A better idea would be to use the s-vid out and hook that up to a TV and only use it when you want to watch movies. You should be able to run a monitor and a TV at the same time with most modern video cards. Video looks fine on a tv but it would be really hard to say type a paper or something without really increasing the font size. S-video cables are just like the RCA yellow cable except better quality. They work in exactly the same way. Hope this helps. Svideo does only sends the image, not the sound also.

[ben-the-slacker]

Yes, you can use the red, white, and yellow to connect your video and audio to your tv or vcr. But if your tv is quite old and/or small, it's not a good decision to use it as a monitor. Image quality is real fuzzy and blurry. Svideo connection replaces the yellow wire to transfer video. It does not provide audio. Svideo provides better quality image but you need to check whether your tv has a Svideo connection or not because not all do.

BTW, even if you use svideo on a large tv, it still isn't that good. I tried on my parents' 36" Wega and text wasn't all that readable.

[Starfury_2260]

yeah you need to use the magnifier program to read anything on the tv.

[Optimus Prime]

It is possible to use your TV instead or your Monitor. But the quality is really poor and the resolution is something like 320x240.

[BeeQuewl]

resolution issues arent a problem for me... my HTPC with s-video out to my toshiba flatscreen hdtv works well.... i can read it from across the room...but its a 36 inch flat that cost 1200 bucks...so... your budget is the limit on how nice you want it to be. my buddy has his going to his 40"+ plasma and it looks almost as perfect as my sony 21" monitor... almost

[Peter M]

Even on a HDTV hugescreen flat thingie, the resolution transmitted over an SVideo cable is no more than 480 lines, and the signal bandwidth allows for about 360 distinguishable pixels.
Over DVI or "component" cable, you'll actually get to HDTV resolutions.

[noisedude]

My housemate does it on our 20" TV and, well, he uses it, but I can't read a damn thing maybe that's the point!!

[soad1789]

well...i dont wanna spend $200 on a 7" flat screen LCD monitor! what is a cheap alternative to spending $200 then???

[noisedude]

a CRT monitor i.e. a really high resolution TV. you know, the ones that have been on computers since the beginning of time...?