On Wed, 16 Jan 2008 16:37:19 +0000, Phil Cook wrote:

> And lo on Wed, 16 Jan 2008 16:08:05 -0000, Jim Henderson
> <nos### [at] nospamcom> did spake, saying:
> 
>> On Wed, 16 Jan 2008 09:21:14 +0000, Invisible wrote:
>>
>>> While we're on the subject... If you wanted to, how hard is it to
>>> connect a PC to a normal TV? (Obviously, PCs normally run at vastly
>>> different scanrates and lack the propper connectors...)
>>
>> Depends on your videocard.  My laptop has an S=Video out, so usually I
>> just have to plug it in.
> 
> A friend of mine was having fun trying to do that with his laptop, no
> picture. Faffing with the video drivers, no picture. Turned out he
> needed to invoke the secret Fn+Fx key combination to switch screens.
> After some pointers I think he ended up with a dual monitor setup so he
> could set the resolution of the TV independently from his laptop screen.

Yeah, often times there is a key combination to get it turned on.

Jim

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"Invisible" <voi### [at] devnull> wrote in message
news:478dcc8b$1@news.povray.org...
> While we're on the subject... If you wanted to, how hard is it to
> connect a PC to a normal TV? (Obviously, PCs normally run at vastly
> different scanrates and lack the propper connectors...)

Not hard. With modern TVs aand computers all you probably need is a cable.

I've got one in the cupboard that plugs into a standard VGA socket and then
into a TV's video in. Can't remember where I got it from.

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Invisible wrote:
> whether the technology that goes into them is actually expensive itself, 

Not in the US at least. Look up "tv capture card". I got a full-blown 
system, 300G drive, 1G ram, dual core 3GHz machine with dual tuner card 
and hardware mpeg, fairly high-end video card (Radeon whatever) 7.1 
surround sound yadda yadda for just under $1000.

The tuner cards themselves are anywhere from $50 to $150 depending on 
how many channels they can tune at once, whether they have hardware mpeg 
support, etc.

If you're commenting on the horizontal boxes, they're a bit more 
expensive than a tower, but the tech inside is identical, including the 
motherboards and all that. It's just rearranged inside to fit.

> or whether you're just paying to have something that works out of the 
> box...

Well, certainly that too.

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     It's not feature creep if you put it
     at the end and adjust the release date.

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Invisible wrote:
> I know my laptop has S-Video out on it.

That's what you need to hook it up. Or "composite", which is a yellow 
RCA plug. (S-Video carries the color and luminescense on different 
lines, or something like that. Somewhat better, but not a lot.)

> I was really astonished when I hooked my laptop up to the 
> TV; all the text was unreadably blurry. 

That's the TV. If you shop around for a TV that's clear, you can read 
80x24 on it pretty easily.

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     It's not feature creep if you put it
     at the end and adjust the release date.

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Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
> I have to disagree with Warp - I don't believe this is not an NTSC vs. 
> PAL issue

  I didn't mean to say it's an NTSC vs PAL issue, but that the NTSC/PAL
standards suck for high-definition images.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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> Yeah, often times there is a key combination to get it turned on.

But usually it's clearly marked. And, usually, you can do it from the 
video driver settings too...

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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In article <478da781$1@news.povray.org>, dne### [at] sanrrcom says...
> Orchid XP v7 wrote:
> > So, given a typical PC, how much would it actually cost to equip it suc
h 
> > that you can record and play back TV with it? What actual hardware and
 
> > software does this require?
> 
> For Windows, a couple hundred bucks for the capture card and "Windows 
> Media Center" (aka MCE), or a more recent version of Windows. That's 
> pretty much what Media Center does, along with showing pictures and 
> music and stuff like that. It also talks to Xboxes and "media extenders"
 
> so you can network it thru your house like AppleTV does.
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Media_Center
> 
> There's also MythTV if you want to do it with Linux, don't mind the 
> typical expert-tolerant Linux type interfaces, and don't mind stealing 
> the TV listings. (Or have they fixed that lately?)
> 
One of the more popular systems for Windows is BeyondTV. You also get 
the ability to tell their system, "Record all new episodes of X", and it 
will automatically schedule them. I **do** suggest that, no matter what 
you use, you set it up on its own dedicated PC. While ones recorded on 
mine, and its not that bad of a system, are mostly watchable, if I am 
doing anything that requires disk access or CPU use, it can fowl up the 
recording, making it play back poorly (or having it not play back 
watchable at all). I have no idea how well Media Center works for doing 
this, but you ***won't*** find it listed as a good alternative on *any* 
site dedicated to TV capture cards. Take from that what ever you want. 
;)

> Most capture cards come with some form of primitive Windows software for
 
> doing this.
> 
Don't get ATI though. The software a) didn't work when installed (not 
compatible with the motherboard), b) let you watch, when the update 
**finally** became available to patch it, but then wouldn't record and 
c) their TV program scheduler is handled by a third party, which hasn't 
released an updated version since like 90 versions ago of ATIs media 
center software, so it won't show the mini-view of the channel, its not 
integrated very well, and it will "look like" its set up to record, but 
it won't, since a different bug prevents that. Mind you, this is on 
"my" system. Some people get it to work... Fact is though, unless AMD 
has redone it, now that they have ATI, their software is garbage.

-- 
void main () {

    if version = "Vista" {
      call slow_by_half();
      call DRM_everything();
    }
    call functional_code();
  }
  else
    call crash_windows();
}

<A HREF='http://www.daz3d.com/index.php?refid=16130551'>Get 3D Models,
 
3D Content, and 3D Software at DAZ3D!</A>

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Patrick Elliott wrote:
> One of the more popular systems for Windows is BeyondTV. You also get 
> the ability to tell their system, "Record all new episodes of X", and it 
> will automatically schedule them.

Media Center does something like that. (I.e., it might not do the same 
thing, but it does something you could describe the way you just 
described it.)

> I **do** suggest that, no matter what 
> you use, you set it up on its own dedicated PC. 

Yah. Actually, I don't watch that much TV, so I'll often run bittorrent 
there or POV or something. Running something that doesn't blast the CPU 
or disk much, or which hits the CPU but is set to run at a lower 
priority, and it seems to be fine.

> I have no idea how well Media Center works for doing 
> this, but you ***won't*** find it listed as a good alternative on *any* 
> site dedicated to TV capture cards. Take from that what ever you want. 

I don't have any complaints about mediacenter itself. The hardware I 
bought seems pretty sucky, but the actual mediacenter program itself 
works fine for me. And it's quite easy to use.

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     It's not feature creep if you put it
     at the end and adjust the release date.

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> While we're on the subject... If you wanted to, how hard is it to connect 
> a PC to a normal TV? (Obviously, PCs normally run at vastly different 
> scanrates and lack the propper connectors...)

If you have a DVI output and a modern TV with HDMI input, then you simply 
buy the correct cable which is about 10 quid.  DVI and HDMI are electrically 
the same, just different connectors (plus HDMI can include digital audio).

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> So, given a typical PC, how much would it actually cost to equip it such 
> that you can record and play back TV with it? What actual hardware and 
> software does this require?

Search Amazon.co.uk for "DVB-T".  That will sort you out in the UK at least 
for the hardware.

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