How do I make my TV-enabled computer and HDTV play nicely with each other?

December 27, 2008 2:29 PM

I just bought an HDTV. I have a computer with a TV Tuner card and beyond TV software. I do not have a standalone DVD player. I have a digital cable box (which may or may not stay, depending on your advice) and I have an HD box on the way. How should I set this all up?

The TV is a Sony Bravia 32" 1020P if that matters. The computer monitor is dell 20" wide screen. I know it has two kinds of inputs. The computer is a dell with a tv tuner card. The computer is my main computer not a dedicated media setup.

I would like to be able to:

1. Continue to use my computer as a PVR, using the BeyondTV software.
2. Watch content from my computer (i.e. things I take using BeyondTV, DVDs that I rent, movies that appear on my hard drive through entirely legal means, etc.) on the television. Preferable if I've recorded HDTV (can I do that?) to see it in HD.
3. Watch TV on the Television or computer.
4. Use the television as a second monitor.
5. Anything else cool or useful that I don't know about, but you suggest.

What kind of cables do I buy and where do I stick them and what are the advantages and disadvantages to various options I might have?

If I've missed something in asking the question or demonstrated a basic lack of understanding of the problem, that's due to ignorance, not lack of interest in your expertise, so please feel free to correct me or make suggestions I haven't directly asked about.

posted by If only I had a penguin... to technology (13 comments total)

It depends if you have the proprietary Dell video card output, or a standard DVI output. Can you tell us the model of the computer, and what type of TV Tuner and Video Card it has?

If you have multiple DVI outputs on the computer, you can use a DVI to HDMI cable (like this one: http://www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?c_id=102&cp_id=10231&cs_id=1023104&p_id=2404&seq=1&format=2 to plug the computer into the TV.

If there is one DVI output, you'll need to figure out if you have a dual head or single head video card, or if your TV tuner card has DVI out. If you have a single head, you'll need to get a splitter.
posted by stovenator at 3:24 PM on December 27, 2008

My device manager lists "ATI Unified AVStream Driver" which I believe is the driver with the TV Tuner card.

The computer is a Dell 9200C,

My monitor has multiple inputs but no clear output: DVI-D VGA, Video and S-Video in inputs.

TV Tuner card: The cable-in port, audio, S-VID, and comp.

THere's no visible video card in the back, but I do have three unused places to plug in cables, that I can't identify:

1. Black, with a symbol below it with a horizontal line and two concentric circles that are split horizontally into halves.

2. Yellow: a Vertical line going through two concentric circles, also split horizontally in halves. This line goes outside the two circles. The black one stays pretty much inside the circles.

3. White/light gray: a horizontal black line. This time the two concentric circles are split vertically and the two halves have switched sides, so the general shape is something like this: )-( where each bracket represents two semi-circles oriented in that direction.

All three of these look like they're designed to take a plug more or less like your standard earphones plug.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 3:53 PM on December 27, 2008

Oh, and the plug the monitor goes into has a symbol next to it with a box (like a tv screen or monitor) with two bracket-y things next to it like this: )box(.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 3:54 PM on December 27, 2008

The ports you describe (1, 2, and 3) are audio ports. Sounds like your monitor is connected via VGA. If you want to use your TV as a second monitor, you will want to pick up a VGA cable, provided that there is a VGA connection on your TV. To watch your recorded programs on your TV, just hook up the TV as a second monitor and watch away.
posted by roomwithaview at 4:56 PM on December 27, 2008

Thanks, but will this mean I need to have two cable boxes (one for the TV for watching live TV and one for the computer for recording)? Presumably this means no HD recording on the computer unless I get a second HD box?

The TV has VGA connection.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 5:05 PM on December 27, 2008

Ok, I just connected the TV to my computer as the main monitor until I get a VGA cable. And the picture is *terrible*. I'm watching law and order SVU and the picture is fuzzy. When it fades to black you can see snow in the black. Also, because law and order SVU displays in the widescreen with the black bars at top and bottom, it also shrinks horizontally and the actual picture is only slightly bigger than my 20" monitor (so black bars at bottom and sides).
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 7:30 PM on December 27, 2008

What resolution did you have your computer set at when you plugged in the TV? It may be set too low. You can check this by right-clicking on the desktop and going to Properties (or go to Display Properties in the Control Panel) Your best bet would be to output at the native resolution that the screen supports. (It's probably in your manual, but your computer may not support 1920x1080 (1080p), so you might want to go for 1280x720 (720p))

Secondly, it appears that you only have one VGA port coming out of your PC and no other Video Out capabilities, so when you want to output to the TV, you'd have to get a switch, and even then, you'd only get one device running at a time.

Another option would be to buy a 2nd video card to output to the TV, but looking at pics of the computer, it doesn't look like you can add a 2nd card...
posted by stew560 at 8:53 PM on December 27, 2008

It's at 1920x1080. If my computer can't handle it, I think I"ll return the TV. I've been just fine without a TV until now. I got a little caught up in boxing day.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 9:50 PM on December 27, 2008

When you said "Ok, I just connected the TV to my computer as the main monitor until I get a VGA cable.", what cable did you use? Did you just swap the VGA cable from the Monitor? Or did you use the SVideo or Composite from the Video Capture Card? If it's the latter, the resolution will be MUCH lower than what you would get from the VGA.

Also, what is the resolution of the video you are trying to run? Was it just Tv through the capture card? Unless you specifically have an HD video capture card, that was only SD video at 480 lines, so it is going to look less than perfect on the big screen, especially if it was running through the encoder, then your computer, then into the TV.

Have you tried hooking the cable line right up to the TV to see if that picture was any better?
posted by stew560 at 10:20 PM on December 27, 2008

I took the VGA cable from the monitor and stuck it on the TV. Though on a second look, the place I hooked it up says "RGB" not "VGA".

I haven't tried hooking the cable up directly yet, I will try that. But if the ultimate solution is going to be "hook the TV up as a second monitor" then the TV-watching will suck (because I'll be watching through the computer) regardless of how it would look if I hooked up the cable, no? I mean I would probably put a splitter before the cable box and put a cable input direct to the TV just to have it, but most of my TV viewing would be pre-recorded or DVD, which would come through the computer.

I think my capture card is HD compatible, it's the ATI THeatre Pro, which some googling seems to suggest is compatible, but "suggest" is the operative word here. I haven't found an outright yes or no. However, note that I don't have the HD cable box, so my *service* isn't HD and I wasn't watching an HD channel.

When my service is HD, though, won't I have the same problem on most channels? I think 17 channels are HD and the rest are just regular digital. Will all the non-HD channels look like snowy crap on the HD TV?

Thanks for all your help so far. I appreciate it.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 8:09 AM on December 28, 2008

At this point if all you have is 1 VGA port and no DVI, HDMI, or Component out of the computer, you most likely won't even be able to use the TV as a 2nd monitor.

Definitely try the cable line right into the TV. You should at least get a better picture from that. I am still shocked that you are seeing such a bad picture on the TV rather than the Monitor, as when you hook up the TV to the VGA cable the TV is the monitor. (RGB is the right port on the TV, probably the only one the VGA cable would fit into)

Another thing to take into consideration is whether your current monitor is a CRT or LCD, and what resolution it actually is running right now. You may be at a lower resolution and when you hook up to the LCD TV, it is much higher, so you may not be seeing "Snow", but rather digital artifacts. Does it look like a Bad TV Signal snow, or pixelization from zooming in the lower resolution?
posted by stew560 at 8:29 AM on December 28, 2008

Ok, just talked to dell, they said I can have two monitors, but I need to buy a "dangle" which is some sort of adapter or splitter which they sell for $25 and I'll try to buy locally rather than wait for shipping. Googling "dangle" didn't seem to find me any of these adapters.

When I had the computer plugged into the monitor I had the resoluttion set one point lower to 1360x768. It's a 20" widescreen LCD.

When I plugged the TV in, I saw the picture (meaning the picture of my desktop) was only using up part of the screen, so increased the resolution settings to 1920x1080 and now the computer screen that I'm typing on right now fills up the whole screen of the TV. It looks ok.

When I watch TV (using the computer/beyondTV) and maximize the beyondTV window, I get the poor TV picture and the picture doesn't fill the whole screen. It doesn't look like pixelization, it looks like static in parts of the picture that should be solid (most noticeable on the black screen when a show fades to black).
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 8:38 AM on December 28, 2008

Ok, some googling made me suspicious of Dell's first answer. So I called them back and they confirmed that I have an integrated video card (just what I told the first guy I talked to, but he didn't seem to think it worth listening to anything I said). So I would have to add a video card to get dual monitors. However, it seems video cards only cost $8--$120, so I might do that. I should probably ask for an HDTV compatible video card? Is there anything else I should ask for?

I know my monitor has DVI inputs as well as VGA. Should I get that instead of VGA as a newer question on the blue seems to indicate?
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 8:56 AM on December 28, 2008