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Computer through the TV - Help!!


Seahorse
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Hi,

Could any of you advise me what set up/kit I need so I can use my TV as a computer monitor ie with a wireless keyboard and mouse? It would just be for access to the internet, music and movies (and to save using a DVD player).

I would still be keeping a pc/monitor/keyboard/printer etc set up in another room for work.

Access under the floor for wiring not an issue so your thoughts on hardwiring V wireless also much appreciated

Ta,

seahorse :lol:

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^Wot he said. Best place to start is with the connections on the back of the telly. Hopefully said telly is of the HD variety as standard def TVs run at such a low resolution that their no use for reading text on... although movies will be fine.

 

The next question is what outputs your computer has: HDMI, VGA, S-Video etc.

 

And lastly, what OS is on yer 'puter? Windows 7 (or even Vista) media center with the web browser plugin would make for a very nice system going on your first post.

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Wow, thanks for that!

TV connections are not an issue, have to get a new telly anyway. I take it

HD's the way to go then?

The computer might be though. Operating system is the one before Vista.

(sorry, bit of a technophobe here)

 

I have seen an advert for windows 7 which sounds like what I'm looking for. It showed a wireless system where all the laptops in the house are connected and they can also watch downloaded movies on the telly. Is this the way to go?

 

I was hoping to do this with the existing system... I can stretch to a new telly but am hoping to keep the cost low-ish after that.

 

Any thoughts?

Ta

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I've just recently upgraded from a "normal" old 28" TV connected via SVHS cable, to a full HD Samsung Series 6 TV.

 

If you are buying a new TV, then paying attention to the facilities it offers is really worthwhile. I was all prepared with a dedicated PC with a media centre setup, but simply plugging a LAN cable into the TV was all that was required.

 

I do use the PC for playing HD content though (don;t have a blu-ray player yet), and it can be handy to have a massive monitor for some applications. Do remember you will need a graphics card that can handle the resolution.

 

For connectivity, personally I'd reccomend hard-wiring, as streaming via wireless can be problematic and even with the highest quality (expensive) kit it isn't going to match a cable.

 

I went for the Samsung LE40B650, at £700 from play.com, which may seem steep but if you bear in mind what it offers media centre wise, it's pretty good value.

 

As for media centre apps, yes Vista had a decent one (the only decent bit of Vista!) but Windows 7's version is much better, however there are plenty of 3rd party Media Centre apps which run on XP if you really want to go that route.

 

Usually its just easier to have a wireless mouse/keyboard and play the files the way you normally do :D

 

Well, hope that helps and isn't too much of a ramble!

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HD's the way to go then?

Yup. If only for the higher resolutions they run at. "1080p" being the UK favourite as far as I know.

 

I have seen an advert for windows 7 which sounds like what I'm looking for. It showed a wireless system where all the laptops in the house are connected and they can also watch downloaded movies on the telly. Is this the way to go?

There's this thing called "DNLA" (Digital Living Network Alliance) that, when a gadget supports it, is meant to let you push pics, music and video to it. Windows 7 can do this but, Microsoft being who they are, it has it's own "enhanced" version of this :roll:.

 

I'm no sure how / if the Win7 method of pushing media to other non Win7 DNLA gadgets works as I've never tried it myself having a Win7 box plugged directly into the back of the telly. I've played with it between Win7 PCs and it works pretty well. It (called "PlayTo") does only work with Windows Media Player though so it's not nearly as fancy or convenient as using the Media Center program itself. I'd tend to shy away from it for now as it's more of an occasional gimmick you'd use rather than an every day solution.

 

I was hoping to do this with the existing system... I can stretch to a new telly but am hoping to keep the cost low-ish after that.

As others have said, there's different options out there. There's no end of dinky boxes (some cheap... some not-so) you can plug in to a telly that'll pull media of the local network and tie in to web services like YouTube and internet radio. The ones I've looked at have never met my personal needs though.

XBMC (XBox Media Center) is a pretty popular (free) alternative to Windows Media Center and can be installed on a PC pretty easily. There can be a bit of tinkering involved depending how much you want to do with it though.

 

As Spinner said - go wired. Wireless is great for lots of things but, when streaming HD media especially, you can suffer from occasional glitches in signal usually caused by interference. I went wireless once (pre the HD era though) and it worked fine for ages. Then I started getting drop-outs and general annoyingness. Turned out the neighbour had put in their own wireless box which was fighting with my own. It was easy enough to fix by switching my wireless to a clear channel... but then that's part of my job. Had I been wired I'd never have had any problems. So yeah, great as wireless is, wired is the way to go for movies and music.

 

It's a bit of a minefield once you start looking... but don't give up! :D If you're wanting to keep things simple and go the PC route then an HD telly with an HDMI input matched to a PC with a HDMI graphics card will get you going.

 

One more question - what about sound? Is your PC good enough for sound or will you be looking at using TV speakers or a surround sound system?

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As others have said, there's different options out there. There's no end of dinky boxes (some cheap... some not-so) you can plug in to a telly that'll pull media of the local network and tie in to web services like YouTube and internet radio. The ones I've looked at have never met my personal needs though.

 

I run Tversity http://tversity.com/ with an Xbox 360 and XP. Works pretty well but some tinkering is sometimes needed. Haven't got it working 100% in Win 7 though.

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XBMC (XBox Media Center) is a pretty popular (free) alternative to Windows Media Center and can be installed on a PC pretty easily. There can be a bit of tinkering involved depending how much you want to do with it though.

 

I'd recommend a few things here.

 

- A dedicated set top box or net-top PC to run this.

- Running XMBC Live rather than running through another OS.

 

XMBC is not easy to set up. It really isn't. I've spent nearly 10 hours getting all my stuff working correctly with proper plugins and movie information.

 

Still... It looks astounding when it's set up propperly. Way nicer than any other Windows alternative I've seen, including Windows 7 MC.

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^A couple of things here:

 

1) If you were to look at buying a dedicated PC for this I'd avoid most net-tops for a couple of months. Even the latest dual-core "Ion" based systems can and do struggle when harassed the right way. Wait for Ion2 / I3 motherboards due out in the coming months (1?) if you want a small near-silent system. Pennies will be much better spent on a core2duo mini tower PC with a quiet power unit and fanless graphics card though.

 

2) I've not tried the XMBC Live myself but I do know it runs atop Ubuntu Mobile. The important word there being "Ubuntu" which equals Linux which equals potential (depending on exactly what's inside your PC) driver hell. If you want to evaluate it Seahorse I'd say to go with the Windows version as, at least then, you stand a better chance of actually evaluating it :wink:

 

3) XBMC is very easy to set up: download and install. Easy. Were it gets harder is, as I said, when you start trying to get fancy with it. That's the joy / price of free. Having spent a good number of years tinkering with various free systems I'll stick with 7MC. I want my telly to "just work" and save tinkering time for elsewhere.

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^A couple of things here:

 

 

I have to agree in some parts to this. An Atom/ION system is not meant for anything outside of video really. Heck it'll probably struggle with flash. I gotta say, I'm having no issues with my setup. Once you throw 512mb of shared memory at it, it seems to cope with even 1080p/24 video.

 

But in terms of a quiet box? My Aspire is barely audible (apart from the initial boot up where it spins the fan). Even HDD access seems fairly quiet. Besides, once you have the TV on, it's not like you can hear it anyway.

 

3) XBMC is very easy to set up: download and install. Easy. Were it gets harder is, as I said, when you start trying to get fancy with it. That's the joy / price of free. Having spent a good number of years tinkering with various free systems I'll stick with 7MC. I want my telly to "just work" and save tinkering time for elsewhere.

 

Yeah, XBMC is simple enough to get going. But 9.11 has some real problems.

 

1, Hibernation is completely screwed, which required me to mess with the configuration files.

2, SMB sharing from a Windows 7 machine requires some pretty heavy playing with to get working.

3, Getting skins to work propperly and look decent is also a complete pain. I'd rather have more native codec support and lower system requirements any day of the week though!

 

Still, it's been a "fun" experiment for me. And anyone who's half decent with a computer should give it a go if they're interested.

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But in terms of a quiet box? My Aspire is barely audible (apart from the initial boot up where it spins the fan). Even HDD access seems fairly quiet. Besides, once you have the TV on, it's not like you can hear it anyway.

Not quite sure what the question is here. My point was that you want a quiet PC if you're watching telly / movies. Net-tops, netbooks, laptops etc. all give you this... but they're either very expensive or underpowered. A quiet mini tower system will give you something with enough oomph and not cost you both arms and a leg in the process :wink:

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I have seen an advert for windows 7 which sounds like what I'm looking for. It showed a wireless system where all the laptops in the house are connected and they can also watch downloaded movies on the telly. Is this the way to go?

There's this thing called "DNLA" (Digital Living Network Alliance) that, when a gadget supports it, is meant to let you push pics, music and video to it. Windows 7 can do this but, Microsoft being who they are, it has it's own "enhanced" version of this :roll:.

 

I'm using it between WinXP and my TV no problem. Right click movie file, PlayTo TV, sit back and enjoy :)

 

You make a good point about sound. The only change I had to make to my existing setup was to go all optical, otherwise the surround system was out of sync with the TV (not an issue if you're using the TV's speakers). Optical is the way to go anyway though. The silence in I Am Legend is excellent!

 

Do many with similar setups actually use the media centre apps? I've tried all I can find, personal favourite being the freeware MediaPortal (mostly due to its emulator support), but all just seem gimmicky and ultimately slow to use compared to just clicking and playing files as you want.

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