turn monitor into a tv? possible?

unwashed potato!

unwashed potato!

unwashed potato!

Soldato
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will be buying a 24" monitor soon and wish to use it also as a tv but as i will be buying a computer monitor over a television i will be getting none of the features the tv provide like remote control for on/off, channel changing ie bbc1/2/itv/4 etc, scart connections for the dvd playey/wii/brothers xbox, and antenna for virgin box.

can you guys help me out as to how possible this is, ie what hardware i will need and if using a monitor as a tv actually looks good, unsure as differnet resolution though would have thought it would look better and not worse.

most likely will be giong for this monitor in next couple of days :D

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MO-055-HY&groupid=703&catid=17&subcat=510

though possibly i might change to the below if i can find one that is non hc

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MO-019-DE

i have posted a thread in monitors section but as it's mostly for which monitors and im not getting many responses about turning it into a tv aswell i firugred best to post it here.

forgot to say that the reason for doing this is that i am wanting to new tv and another monitor to go with my current 20.1" but i only have the room for one and as pc is more important to me and afaik using a monitor as tv is better then tv as monitor is much better i am opting for this way. The tv will be used mostly just at nights when pc is off and i am drifting off just hit off button and im asleep so i don't want to use anything that needs to be plugged into the pc if possible.
 
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Mammalian said:
so to do what i have asked in the first post all i need is a tv card?

i have tv license btw, this will be replacing my current tv.
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Your pc plays dvds, the xbox can use a vga cable, the tv card will receive freeview and the wii can use a component cable.
 
ah thanks for the replies but you guys aren't understanding what im asking for.

neo4: i can't fit a tv and a monitor so why suggest buy a tv i don't know, i have explained why i want a monitor more as well.

Energize: as i said above the pc will be off when using the tv so i can't use the dvd drive of the pc but instead a dvd player so i need a scart connection for that, aswell as when i connect things like the wii and the old xbox. I also need an analog connection for virgin box unless the tv card will still work even if pc is switched off?

also i want a remote control to turn the device off at night but maybe that can be done with one of those power supply remote controls if you know what imean., but it would still be nice to use a remote control to turn the monitor on/off and also change input source.

how does tv look on a monitor? like normal everyday tv when put onto a monitor which has better resolution how does it look?

thanks again
 
Neo4 said:
JVC LT23D50BK

23" LCD TV would seem perfect to me?
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anyone with some useful advice? nah im joking, thanks for the suggestion but seriously im after a monitor which i think is sorted, but i want to know how to make it as much like a tv as possible, main use of the device will be as a monitor, secondary as tv, and i know using a tv as a computer screen looks rubbish but as montior as a tv afaik isn't that bad.
 
TV will look slightly worse on a high res monitor than a low res TV.

I'd personally suggest just getting a Monitor that doubles up as a TV. I just bought the Samsung 2032MW, which is primarily a monitor but has a tuner, scart, component, composite, s-video, hdmi etc. etc.

It's only 20" so probably not big enough for you but I think something similar is probably the best solution. I'm not sure you'll be able to achieve everything you want without having lots of little adapters and connector boxes kicking around.

Mine is however, 1680x1050 resolution, so looks nice as a monitor and with HD stuff.
 
Mammalian said:
Energize: as i said above the pc will be off when using the tv so i can't use the dvd drive of the pc but instead a dvd player so i need a scart connection for that, aswell as when i connect things like the wii and the old xbox. I also need an analog connection for virgin box unless the tv card will still work even if pc is switched off?
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You can connect it using s-video. But a dvd player will look awful on a monitor though because of the resolution difference.
 
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Energize said:
You can connect it using s-video. But a dvd player will look awful on a monitor though because of the resolution difference.
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really! why though? i firugred as it has better resolution it logically should look better but then obivosuly because of changing it etc it won't be great but should still be really decent? even if connected via hdmi connection say like if i was to get one from ocuk with upscalling will it look bad? why on the current monitor does watching dvds through dvd drive on pc look good?
 
The gpu upscales dvds, whereas normal dvd players don't. You could get an upscaling hdmi dvd player. But a pc with ffdshow will look better.
 
You are in the same predicament I was in ages ago. I have just a monitor (Dell 20") which I use for a monitor and a television. To get the tv channels I had to buy an external tv tuner. This then connects to the monitor via the VGA connector on the monitor.

This means that I can watch tv WITHOUT having the computer on. The external tv tuner I got was from ebay (not sure if im allowed to say that or not) as it was the only place I seemed to be able to find one. The picture quality as you can imagine isnt quite PC/DVD quality, but it does me ok and looks just fine when i'm laying in bed.

Good luck on your external tv tuner hunt.
 
edwardcasbon1 said:
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which external tv tuner did you get and how much did it cost? anything i should look out for when buying one?

thanks

also do you know of any way to turn the monitor off with a remote control? i have these things that plug into a socket which can be turned off by a remote (kind of like a timer for lamps but with a remote control) which i might use if nothing else.

Energize: i am thinking of getting the player from ocuk for £40 or whatever it was that upscales as my player is on it's way out anyway but only if it is good and is small enough to fit in the space i have for it, width wise. so this would look just as good then getting that?

[edit]

ok looking now for a extneral tv tuner and can anyone tell me why they are all connected the the monitor via vga cable as surely the image quality is already doomed using vga as apposed to say dvi or hdmi?

also while here can someone list the order of quality of connections, all i got so far is hdmi,dvi,vga but rgb/composite/component/s video haven't a clue.

thanks again all, really appreciate the help.
 
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