LCD monitor into fully functional TV?

July 21, 2012 6:17 PM

How can I set up my LCD monitor as a full-fledged TV for a digital tuner, DVD player, and Wii?

There were a couple questions covering the topic previously, but they were all around 2-3 years old and I'm wondering if options have grown since then. My monitor has VGA, DVI, and HDMI inputs, as well as 3/4" audio output.

What I'd like to do is skip getting a cable box altogether and buy an over-the-air digital tuner to get a handful of HD channels and get a cheapo DVD player so I don't have to hook up my laptop to watch DVDs. Icing on the cake would be the ability to hook up my Wii for Netflix and the occasional game, or if not that then the ability to hook up a Roku or Boxee. I'm cool with having to do cable switching manually but a central hub that I can hook everything to would be fantastic.

My questions are: what equipment do I need, what won't work automatically, and is it as easy as connecting a DVD player (or Blu-Ray if I get one) to it with an HDMI cable? And what cords would I need to get the Wii into it? I only have composite cables for it now - and how would I get audio from my Wii/everything else to my monitor anyway? Or does audio go through HDMI?

posted by gregoryg to technology (7 answers total)

I have something like THIS and it works great. All you need is an antenna. This won't help with the Wii.
posted by brownrd at 6:29 PM on July 21, 2012

To clarify, I don't want to have a computer hooked up to the monitor at any point.
posted by gregoryg at 6:34 PM on July 21, 2012

Depends on if the monitor has speakers. If so, typically the HDMI is sufficient.

No speakers? Solutions become the next level of complex unless your cable box has alternative audio-out, and you'd need a receiver that will take those outputs. Would need something like a receiver that'll take HDMI audio and split the HDMI at the source.
posted by porpoise at 9:44 PM on July 21, 2012

It has speakers so that shouldn't be an issue. If I hooked a tuner directly to it, how would I change channels? Can I do that directly on the tuner? Or are you saying I need a cable box no matter what?
posted by gregoryg at 8:17 AM on July 22, 2012

You'd change channels on the TV/"cable" box; thats why a TV with the same screen specs as a monitor typically costs a little more than the monitor.
posted by porpoise at 9:49 AM on July 22, 2012

seconding porpoise's comment

if it's just a no-name monitor, it almost certainly lacks the ability to interpret a tv signal like you'd get from an antenna (particularly if it doesn't have an obvious antenna input). i'd spend some time browsing amazon for a standalone tv tuner that has a coaxial input (for the antenna), RCA inputs (for the Wii/DVD Player), and DVI/VGA/HDMI output (for the monitor)

something like this should work, although i'm not positive that it would carry the audio signal over VGA to get sound. you might need (or want) an external set of speakers.
posted by FreelanceBureaucrat at 1:25 PM on July 22, 2012

Looks like that won't work with a digital tuner but it gets me in the right direction, thanks!
posted by gregoryg at 4:36 PM on July 22, 2012