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Using Your TV as a Monitor?

Posted by Cliff on from the next-point-of-convergence dept.

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.

4 of 53 comments (clear)

  1. Build your own by SpatchMonkey · · Score: 4, Informative

    You could try building your own, there is a good page on it here.

    1. Re:Build your own by SpatchMonkey · · Score: 2, Informative

      And a more general article on displaying VGA pictures on your TV can be found here. I should've put this in the post I'm replying to, but never mind.

  2. nVidia by mwilson · · Score: 3, Informative

    I've got an nVidia GeForce 2 MX card with S-Video and composite out. There are no special drivers required, or special setup. At powerup, the card detects where the video cable is plugged in, and uses that output. The upshot of this is that the video bios string shows up on my TV when I start up the machine.

    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

  3. ATI Radeon 8500s can output to HDTV. by stickb0y · · Score: 4, Informative

    ATI fairly recently came out with an adapter to let their Radeon 8500 cards output to HDTV. Anandtech has a brief review of it.