Monitor as a TV?

[Pappy]

Since a computer monitor is basically a TV with out a tuner, why couldn't one be fed the signal from an HDTV converter box? (Assuming an adapter exists to connect the HDMI cable to the plug on the monitor)

[toolguy1000]

i think this will do the trick:

http://www.amazon.com/HDMI-VGA-HD15-.../dp/B001OLCHJ6

[vaking]

HDMI cable carries sound as well as video. Every TV has built-in sound processor and speakers but not every monitor has it. If your monitor does not - you will need a separate sound system and separate output from converter box for sound.
Generally line between TV and monitor is becoming very blurry. Most video cards include HDMI output for connecting to TV (for home-theater type setups). Using TV instead of monitor as video output from computer is more common than using monitor instead of TV with converter boxes. TV resolution of 1080P is actually higher than common resolutions for computer monitors. (1080P means the TV has a resolution of 1920X1080). I am typing this using 26" TV instead of a monitor. There are cables that have HDMI on one end and DVI on the other, so converting input type is not difficult. Digital is digital, no conversion is really necessary.
As for the tuner built into TVs - such tuners are only for standard resolution anyway. If you want hidef - you will have to use external tuner. I am expecting that manufacturers may start dropping TV tuners as part of TV systems soon. Instead - they are already making networking/Internet apps etc part of TV.
From my experience using TV instead of monitor with the computer - the biggest hassle is power savings settings. Monitors and computers are configured to go to sleep and wake up on demand. TVs also go to sleep but don't wake up automatically. You have to push a button on TV to wake it up.
PS. Make sure that your monitor has digital input, like DVI. Do not try to connect digital output from the box (HDMI) to analog input on the monitor (VGA). This would require digital to analog conversion and this will likely get complicated. The link above will not do the trick.

[gerti]

Or like this if your monitor does DVI:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16812189056

[LinuxRandal]

The connections are the key. People frequently buy and use TV tuner cards in their pc's.

[mpc]

A few years ago the feds mandated ATSC (i.e. digital) tuners be part of an "TV" larger than some size (40 inches or something like that) to help encourage the transition; many such TVs also had NTSC (analog) tuners. "Monitors" though didn't have to include tuners.

Quite a few mid-range and high-end PC flat screen monitors are now set up to accept quite a few video formats. The Dell PC LCD monitor I'm using has two DVI inputs (digital, basically HDMI without the audio wires), a composite video (the old yellow RCA jacks), and component video (high-def analog Pb/Py/Pr). Newer versions have HDMI and DisplayPort connections. So a PC monitor can in fact be used as a TV screen depending on your signal source. For over-the-air broadcasts you'll need a separate tuner or a PC with a TV-tuner card/USB tuner. For cable, satellite, etc (anything with an external box) odds are the output of that box can be plugged directly into a PC class monitor. Dell has a "sound bar" add-on that clips to the bottom of many of their PC LCD monitors to give you decent stereo speakers; they have 2 inputs (e.g. one for a PC, one for your external video). My Dell does Picture-in-Picture too so I have one of the ATSC to analog converter boxes feeding the composite video input and the PC driving a DVI input. Most of my screen is thus Windows/Mozilla and channel 5 news is in the P-i-P window at the top/right. I don't need the PC powered on to watch TV this way.

A couple things to consider though when using a PC monitor as a TV screen:
1: the digital "range" for TV is different than PC. Digital monitors use 8 bits per Red/Green/Blue color channel for 256 color steps for each color. "0" is dark/black, 1 is barely perceptible, etc. 255 is max brightness. TV signals though only use a subset of that range... anything from 0 to 16 is "black" while max brightness begins at something like 250 or so - I forget the exact number. So when using a PC monitor as a TV the display will be slightly distorted in color and brightness/contrast because of the differing ranges. To correct this, you'd need your signal source (cable box, etc) to have adjustments in the menus to use the digital range of a PC monitor... or the monitor needs a setting to use stretch the smaller TV digital range to 0 through 255. Those would be some sort of menu options. Often this is automatic on HDMI connections. Good PC video cards (ATI, Nvidia, maybe the Intel integrated chip) drivers also have settings to pick one or the other standard.

2: The color capability of typical PC LCD monitor panels is generally less than old CRT type displays; one reason why serious photo editing folks pay big bucks for expensive LCD panels that can display more of the visible color spectrum... or they stick to older CRTs. For TV stuff this isn't such a big deal since the TV color spectrum is also smaller than what the average human eye can actually perceive. The TV versus PC standard color space is also different... another "mapping" difference like the 0-255 stuff above. So you might see some color distortion comparing a PC monitor to a TV when both are displaying the same TV source signal.

3: LCD monitors have a reaction time - how long it physically takes pixels to transition from one color/brightness to another. Going from black to white, or white to black (i.e. the largest "swing" in pixel driving voltages) tends to be the quickest; going from one shade to a similar shade (not as much change in applied voltages to the pixel so there is less "oomph" to make the LCD materials physically move) often takes longer (what magazines and testers refer to as "gray to gray response time.") To help compensate, many PC LCD panels use an "overboost" technique: they hit a pixel with a larger initial pulse to get the stuff moving, then the voltage quickly settles to the final steady-state value to obtain the right color/brightness. Sometimes this overboost is visible to the eye as a brief bright spot/flash. For a PC screen, where the majority of the screen is fairly static (like a web page) this isn't a big deal. When watching rapidly changing images though (PC video games, movies/videos, etc.) this overboosting can be quite visible to some folks. TV screens, and PC screens intended for video work, typically don't use as much overboost to keep the sparkling to a minimum. Rapid motion sequences (sports) is a good test for a TV or PC monitor.

4: Because the ATSC digital signal is compressed the displayed picture is never quite as high-res as what the video camera captured. TVs include sophisticated signal processing to try to reduce the effects of this compression. Compression is generally most visible during rapid transition scenes (sports, or quick scene changes in movies/videos) as a brief blocky looking image. Most PC monitors won't have this signal processing; they expect the computer's video card to do that job. ATI and Nvidia both have such technologies. The compression artifacts are more visible as the monitor size increases. I don't see much of anything in my P-i-P since it's not too large; driving the whole 24" monitor with a TV sports signal though is less than pretty compared to my larger plasma TV.

mpc

[Pappy]

Thanks for the info guys. (mpc, you lost my old brain somewhere around "the feds mandated ATSC") I didn't even think about the speaker problem.

I just looked at the monitor in question again and it has an HDMI input. What I don't think it has are speakers, or any way to hook up an external set.

[Pappy]

Update. Changed the input setting on the monitor to HDMI, plugged it into the cable box and got a great picture. I had the monitor sitting on top of my scanner and had the old TV running for sound.

The converter box has RCA jacks for connecting a TV with a component cable. I first tried to plug speakers directly to the audio jacks and got nothing. I callled tech support at my cable provider and he took me through several setting changes but none of them worked. I hooked the speakers back to the bookshelf stereo and was going to give up on the idea when it hit me. A TV has an amplifier to drive the speakers. RCA cables from the 'Audio Out' on the box to the 'Aux In' on the stereo and I got better sound than all but the high end TV's!

A bit of rearranging and I have a system that looks and sounds good.





The VCR is hooked up to the computer to convert VCR's to DVD's.