How many people use their computer as their TV?

[Alt+F4]

I do. I have a 22" NEC professional CRT monitor, and have a TV tuner built into my computer and use Windows MCE 2005. Pioneer 500w receiver with a optical connetion to the computer for 5.1 and DTS sound. Got a RF remote to control it all. Anyone else have HTPCs?

 

[Hi Ho]

I will have an HTPC as soon as I have the money to build one. I am sick of using my VCR for recording shows and Tivo doesn't offer enough flexibility (only one tuner!), not to mention the subscription fees.

I will include two or three tuners, one HD capable, and plenty of hard drive space. If I can afford it at the time, I will make it game worthy as well.

 

[lbjazz]

I used to use my computer monitor as a tv because I'm so poor. The only reason I still don't is because I ugpraged to window xp pro and my drivers are messed up. It's kinda funny how ati won't let people who have their video cards upgrade the tv tuner drivers. Normal pc use is fine, just not the tv tuner. I don't plan on buying from ati again.

 

[Hi Ho]

Hauppauge makes some of the best tuners on the market. ATI is just OK, nothing spectacular.

 

[bloosquare]

Our primary "TV" are two computer monitors (20" dell and 20" apple) that are in two "dens"/computer rooms on the 2nd and 3rd floors of our house (its a row house, not a crazy mansion ) On the first floor I have a 11 year old 20" panasonic tv that currently is only used as a terminal for the xbox and nintendo 64. The panasonic tv will get an upgrade and I am thinking of forgoing the TV route all together and using a HD (by pixel) capable monitor and a computer.
I am not positive about this but I think the upsampling of computers from SD is better than what receivers /dvd players do (has anyone studied this?).

But the main reasons i'm thinking of getting not replacing our tv w/ another tv is that
(1) 1920x1080 and higher capable computer monitors are cheap compared to tvs (and the HD cards are cheap)
(2) You get an extra computer built into the cost of the TV (and networking capabilities there of)
(3) Computers play any codec ever, so it can be considered a dvd player on steroids and I am guessing the HD/Blue-ray players will be much cheaper
for computers than stand-alone.

(4) No weird HDMI nonsense aka "encrypted" digital video because they dont trust us.
(5) auto networking/PVR capabilites for both audio and video.

The downsides are you can't get super large monitors aka > 34" like you can w/ TVs and there is something to be said about the instant on of TV.


I have a feeling apple is going to sell some sort mythtv/media pc solution really soon (maybe january?) so i'm waiting for to see what that looks like.

 

[Hi Ho]

The downsides are you can't get super large monitors aka > 34" like you can w/ TVs and there is something to be said about the instant on of TV.

You can connect a PC to any display using the VGA, DVI, component, S-Video, or composite outputs (depending on what your video card has).

 

[bloosquare]

You can connect a PC to any display using the VGA, DVI, component, S-Video, or composite outputs (depending on what your video card has).

Agreed, but i'm not sure analog outs are the way w/ > SD as I believe the signal will be converted using them back to standard SD, some of the plasmas seem not to taking the DVI->HDMI converters as they are looking for the HDCP encryption signal. There also seem to be syncing issues.

http://forum.ecoustics.com/bbs/messages/2/111735.html

http://www.avforums.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-214489.html

Also computer monitors are "progressive" by design these days, not the weird 1920x1080p but only accepts 1920x1080i w/ an internal conversion to p.

but you are right it does open up the possibility of using an nice TV simply as a monitor (though i think the downsides outweigh the upsides)

 

[Hi Ho]

Component and VGA offer HD resolutions and there really isn't much, if any, noticable difference between them and DVI/HDMI. You have to look really close.

 

[w.e-coyote]

Being the TV-centric freak I am, I have to ( ) take issue with this.

A computer is NOT a good video processing device. Yes, the display resolution will be similar to what TV's offer but before the video gets there... A lot of things need to happen before you get decent video perfomance and the PC was never designed for that.

Take de-interlacing. In PC terms, line-based or field-based de-interlacing is the norm. In TV's (and good DVD players and Pre-Amps too for that matter) they have moved way beyond that and can do motion-compensated de-interlacing, edge-dependant de-interacing (eg. Faroudja's DCDi), and a whole slew of other techniques. Basically they apply different de-interlacing algorithms depending on the source and content. These are dedicated video improvement techniques which is quite different from PC's that are just pumping pixels.

Format conversion is another point. And 3D filtering. And Noise Suppression.

Granted you may not notice these things very clearly on a relatively small display (20") but beyond that...

Personally I can not bear to watch DVD's from my PC (17" LCD, 128 MB graphics). The "jaggies", low resoution, terrible picture detail, block artefacts, color rendering etc. etc. drive me absolutely nuts.

So, caveat emptor (buyer beware)...

 

[brian32672]

Hauppauge makes some of the best tuners on the market. ATI is just OK, nothing spectacular.

I have to disagree with that. The new 550 processor on the ATI Elite TV card is claimed to be superior over the likes of any of Hauppauge's cards.

I have read about 8 reviews of the card, and all are very positive of the actual image quality.
The problem is that ATI contracted out the software - And the software is poor.
However, ATI has fixed the issues with the software - Specifically that the software had no guide.

Here is a ok review - http://reviews.designtechnica.com/review2351_main11763_page3.html

At the beginning of the review it slightly states can it compete with the Hauppauge cards.
Later it says this - "We can confidently say this is one of the best looking TV Tuner cards we have seen."

However, once again ATI (IMO) should have just went with their own software.

EDIT:: BTW, I will be buying one pretty soon. And I have had quite a few tuner cards, including Hauppauge.
So I will have something to base my opinion on....
At the moment I have a ATI All In Wonder X 800XT card with built in tuner.
And yes, I will say the tuner in the card is about average, nothing spectacular.
But the entire feature set of this card is absolutely amazing, and IMO is worth every penny.
I have had about 3 or 4 of the AIW cards. And by far this is the best, of these cards.

 

[Hi Ho]

I had never heard of that ATI card before. It looks nice. Does it have a hardware MPEG2 encoder? That is something the Hauppauge cards (PVR-150 and up) have that gives them quite an advantage.

The review compared the ATI to an "older Hauppauge WinTV" card. The Hauppauge PVR model cards are a step up from the WinTV models. Still, I am impressed with the results from the ATI card.

 

[Buckeyefan 1]

I do. I have a 22" NEC professional CRT monitor, and have a TV tuner built into my computer and use Windows MCE 2005. Pioneer 500w receiver with a optical connetion to the computer for 5.1 and DTS sound. Got a RF remote to control it all. Anyone else have HTPCs?

Mine's not that fancy, but we really enjoy our 20" Olevia LCD with a built in tuner. The computer station was moved into our living room to make room for a new (third ) addition to the family (expecting Feb. 19th), so out went my office from the smaller bedroom to the large living room. It actually worked out great - we're finally using this room. The kids get to watch cartoons in SD - and those stations seem to come in the best, as well as dvd's - they look fantastic on this set.

The pq on the monitor is very good for a $350 unit. I'm only running 2.1 Labtec speakers at the moment. It actually sounds pretty good with the Media Player EQ and little sub in the corner. The specs on the monitor are: brightness - 500cd/m2; 500:1 contrast ratio; Response Time - 12ms (decent for gaming); and a 170 degree viewing angle.

Olevia makes a 37" unit that is out of this world. I picked one up for my folks recently for $999. It has a VGAx1; HDMIx1; 2 component inputs; and dual ATSC/NTSC tuners with PIP and side by side picture (very cool for NFL). My wife vetoed me getting one as a computer monitor. Said it was too big, sitting at the desk.

Here's some pics of the 20".

http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b152/tpc3416/computerpics001.jpg
http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b152/tpc3416/computerpics002.jpg
http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b152/tpc3416/computerpicsa005.jpg

 

[brian32672]

I had never heard of that ATI card before. It looks nice. Does it have a hardware MPEG2 encoder? That is something the Hauppauge cards (PVR-150 and up) have that gives them quite an advantage.

Yeah, its a full hardware encoder.
Straight from ATI = "Featuring high quality TV and stereo FM radio, TV WONDER™ ELITE delivers full hardware MPEG-2 compression, a 3D comb filter, and advanced noise reduction for advanced Personal Video Recorder capabilities."

Here is a very short review - but it gets right to the good points of the card.
Reviewed on 2-25-05
http://www.nextgenelectronics.com/tvwonderelite.php

This is its main selling points from that review.

For starters, this new Theater 550 Pro chipset is a huge advancement for TV to PC technology. A breakdown of the new chipset's features:

Next Generation 12-bit Video Decoder that features 3D Comb Filtering for NTSC and PAL and 5-line 2D Comb Filtering that delivers absolutely unrivaled video quality

Next Generation Hardware Video and Audio Encoder with new features such as Advanced Noise Reduction

PCI Express X1 and PCI interface on a single device to allow PC companies the ultimate flexibility in form factor designs

Digital IF Demodulation that improves video quality and reduces the overall solution cost by eliminating the need for expensive tuners

Worldwide multi-standard Audio Decoder

The big selling points here is the new 12-bit video decoder that features the 3D comb filtering and the 5-line 2D comb filtering. This delivers a significant upgrade in delivering television signals from the cable to your television set to output to your monitor.

 

[Alt+F4]

As far as the very large monitors go, look at a company called Monivision:

http://www.monivision.com/Products.htm

They have some 38" CRT monitors that they use as displays here that are phenominal. As far as plasma or LCD HTPC compatibility (to use as a TV) look at Viewsonic or NEC. They are really the best overall in the field right now across the board.