Apple display as a TV?

April 21, 2005 6:52 PM

I have an Apple 20" Aluminum Cinema Display. What do I need if I want to use it as a TV without a Mac attached?

Basically, I'd like to move this display off my desk and into my living room--reserving the option to take it back into the office and use it with my computer. Is there a box of some kind that will let me hook up my DVD player and cable box to the display? I'm totally ignorant about this kind of stuff and don't even know where to start looking.

Thanks!

posted by josh to computers & internet (6 comments total)

You need one of these, probably:

Component to DVI converter/scaler

It looks like it will take just about any input (composite, s-video, or YCbCr/RGB component) and convert/scale it to DVI-D.

I don't have one of these myself, but it appears to be the right specifications.
posted by tomierna at 7:05 PM on April 21, 2005

Tomierna is correct, but his solution may not solve your problem WRT viewing regular old cable.

Unless your cable box, VCR, or DVD player does it for you, you'll need to convert the RF signal (carried over coaxial cable) from the cable box. This will do it. And then you'll need to feed that into the converter/scaler.

IMO, Apple will release a media center (with all the ports and converters you need) in the next 18 months.
posted by trharlan at 7:52 PM on April 21, 2005

Ouch--$200!

Maybe I should be looking into selling my display and getting a Dell with video input....
posted by josh at 7:54 PM on April 21, 2005

Some/most HD cable boxes (this won't help your viewing of DVD/etc.) have DVI outputs on them - if you plug 'em into the display, wouldn't that work as well? (I would assume the box would say "here display this" and the monitor would figure it out, but I could be wrong and your picture quality would suffer anyway. But, if it worked, it'd be cheaper than buying an adapter..)

Alternatively you can buy a Mac Mini and an EyeTV :)
posted by mrg at 8:51 PM on April 21, 2005

Hahaha, I know, my thought exactly was: for $200, why not spend $500 and get a Mac Mini?
posted by josh at 4:33 AM on April 22, 2005

mrg has a good idea. Cable boxes, and even some OTR (over the air) HDTV recievers have DVI-out. A samsung OTR box my friend had comes to mind, and I think it shook out to around $200. Of course, you'll need an antenna, but you get suprisingly good results from a set of "bunny ears", and if you live close to a major metro. area, you can usually pull down a few nice HD stations.

As for DVD, there are some high-end DVD players out now that have DVI-out and scale-up the video to the higher resolutions available to HD displays.

That's a pretty sweet display you have there, by the by.
posted by GreenTentacle at 5:40 AM on April 22, 2005