pc connection to TV's?

[emaxxjeremy]

i am getting a sharp aquos 37" lcd and was thinking about doubling it as a comp monitor. pick up a bluetooth keyboard and mouse and i can sit on the couch and surf RCC on the big screen.
my question is more pertainong to video cards. it has a pc connection, so i dont really need an hdmi out, but can i run it at a standard pc video res with my onboard video?

 

[2JSC]

I re-read it... thor is right. On board video is pretty lame. You can pick up a 128Mb vid card for pretty damn cheap off newegg.com and that should be plenty for basic functions. And I'm guessing the tv isn't 1080p, so 1366x768 would be the highest res the should support on the PC connection.

 

[Thorsteenster]

Probably, but for full effect I'd get a video card. I got a Dell 20" wide screen monitor about a year ago and trying to run that on my onboard el cheapo Dell Dimension video was lacking. I snagged an old I think 64k Nvidia card from work and it made quite a difference. The biggest difference was in Windows media player with the screen effects going.

 

[emaxxjeremy]

the tv has a pc input as well as a couple hdmi inputs, i was going to use the pc input.

 

[Thorsteenster]

Do you have a PCI Express slot or AGP? Play games or do anything graphic intensive on your PC?

 

[emaxxjeremy]

well i am using the onboard intel graphics with 96mb alocated to it.
and the problem is its the slim chassis dell, so half width cards get expensive

 

[2JSC]

Ah its one of those - I'd buy a cheap cable from monoprice.com and see how it works, as long as your just surfing it shouldn't be bad.

 

[Thorsteenster]

Yeah, honestly. Just connect it and see how it does, it will run but maybe slow. Then decide if you want to upgrade video or just go back to using a monitor.

 

[Thorsteenster]

Or, here, pretty cheap.
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3192397&CatId=1560

 

[Thorsteenster]

Or here, I've bought some components from them before, good place and free shipping.
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=10005241

 

[Scattman]

We did it on my buddies big a$$ Sony. HDMI makes all the difference. It looked terrible otherwise. Like they said, just pick up a card. We routinely pick up 256 mb cards for like 40 to 50 bucks from NewEgg.

You will love it when you get it set up. He has been running it like that off and on for a couple of years now.

I will get the lowdown on his setup when I go in to work in the a.m.

 

[BUBBA069]

If you use the HDMI port the video card will need to be able to convert the signal. If it doesn't then when you play a retail DVD with the security all you will get is a blank screen.

If all your doing is surfing and playing vids then the onboard should work as long as it can get the res need to match the res of the TV and XP will see it as just another monitor. Get a DSUB malexmale cable to hook up to the TV and your good to go.

 

[2JSC]

We did it on my buddies big a$$ Sony. HDMI makes all the difference. It looked terrible otherwise. Like they said, just pick up a card. We routinely pick up 256 mb cards for like 40 to 50 bucks from NewEgg.

When using HDMI, you'd need an HDCP compliant card if your watching DVD or HD format video, and those are only the newest cards out. But he just wants to surf the web, so a basic RGB connection will be fine.