Here is a link that might help, if you have an HDMI slot on your TV: https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct...eoCQf2EYov6Fyt_He8XslHg&bvm=bv.83339334,d.eXY
Using a TV screen as a computer is often not as cool as it sounds. And this is primarily because of the resolutions. This is because TVs are typically nowhere near as high a resolution as computer monitors are. This is because they are designed to watch TV shows and movies on, not reading text on or seeing fine details. They also have slower refresh rates, causing higher ghosting and blurring. The system I use is kind of a hybrid. I use a standard 20" square monitor for my usual computer operations, but have a 32" wide screen TV set up right next to it. And the difference is noticeable. The TV screen is fine for browsing the web and watching a video, but it sucks if I try to play a game on it. Not only does it look like crap, most games are still designed to operate on a more square screen, on wide screen it either cranks the resolution way down, or I get a large distortion effect on it. My 20" runs at 1280x1024. You would think the 32" would be significantly higher, but it is only 1360x768. Moving a single desktop icon from the 20" to the 32" makes it grow to roughly 4 times the size it was originally. And I can bump it to a higher resolution, but then the quality of picture degrades significantly - to the point it is almost unreadable. If you want to do this however for say a MMPC type setup, it is not to hard. Just get a video card with HDMI, and a TV card for the computer. This way the computer is your tuner. Or since most TVs have multiple HDMI ports, just plug your cable or other device into one HDMI, and the computer into another (this is what I do, my desktop TV sometimes is used as a TV instead of a monitor). Then there are other options like Chromecast. In short, there are no shortage of ways to do this, it all depends on ultimately what you want to do with it all.
I was just looking around my local Walmart's electronics department a couple of days ago and came across a "Slingshot" for sale. Almost bought it blind since it claims to make your cable or satellite TV available on all your devices...but then remembered how much I had already lost by buying things I can't get to work correctly. Are you familiar with those?
I think you mean a "Slingbox". That is for remote viewing, not sure why you would want this. As I said, it all depends on what exactly it is you want to do. What do you want to do? What is your goal here?
My spouse has control of the cable-connected TV, and I thought it would be nice to be able to view cable elsewhere in the house with my own TV. My brother gave me a great monitor-like TV but it is not digital and I have to go through adapter hell to use it as it is, so I'm not certain the sling-thing would work for me. I haven't been to their website yet, though, and your correction of its name should help me to find that. I suppose whatever I do I'd still have to watch the same programs as spouse anyway so my motivation is not too high to deal with it. I am not interested in watching TV on a teeny tiny screen. I have Netflix on another TV, but sometimes I just want to watch the current BBC or something like that. Spouse watches the weather and FOX almost exclusively, a real waste of a costly cable connection in my opinion.
Wait a year and 55 inch UHD televisions will probably be cheap. My understanding is that UHD is designed to do just what you want to.
These days most televisions are 1080p. So are most monitors. Refresh rates are only an issue in high speed competitive gaming. Run it in the TV's native resolution, and you won't have a problem 99% of the time.
Presumably, the 'wall size screen' will already have a TV tuner in it. If your PC has an HDMI port, an HDMI cable is all you need. Else you'll need to either add an HDMI card, or buy a VGA/Sound to HDMI adapter. In the thread topic, you used the word 'simplest'. So this may be well beyond what you want, but I'll mention OpenELEC. It is an open source (free) linux based Media Center operating system that you can install on a PC to turn it into a full featured Media Center. You can even install it on the tiny (and cheap) raspberry pi (about $35), that will connect DIRECTLY to your TV via HDMI and to your network.
Sorry, why not just call your cable company and get another cable installed and a cable box? Because that is really the only way you are going to be able to do it. If your cable company has not already gone to 100% digital, it is only a matter of time. Slingbox or a device like it will work only if you both want to watch the same thing (It is to let 2 or more locations watch the same broadcast, not to allow 2 different locations to watch different broadcasts from the same source). I think I have a better idea what you are wanting, and you will have to pay for that from your cable company. I am not saying there will be a problem, just that the computer output on the TV will look like crap. The resolution on a TV is nowhere near as good as that on a computer monitor. Here, let me quote myself here to give an idea on what you seemed to miss: But tell you what, if you think they are the same, then toss your monitor and work only from a TV. Myself, I happen to use both. The monitor is for 80% of my use, the TV is if I want to watch a video clip or type in a forum (the larger picture - lower resolution is actually better for my failing eyes). But for any type of game, or something like video or audio editing, it is in the smaller monitor.
I must admit I did not read your personal experience. I have a 30" 2560x1600 monitor for my desktop, so I get what you're saying - it entirely depends on your TV. But if someone is asking this question there's a fair chance they have a 1920x1080p TV somewhere around the house. That's more than enough real estate. I use my 55" 1080p screen for movies, that's about it. Nothing wrong with it. Looks fine. Not anywhere near the same pixel density as the 2560x1600 30" or my 1080p 5" phone, but what the hey - you want size for movies. Even for games, that TV of mine is perfectly adequate. In a blind test you'd struggle to fault it compared to a standard 1080p monitor.
Depends on the game, to be honest. I am one of those that tends to run my resolutions to the max. And the reason is simple, I get more viewing real estate the higher I run the resolution. So when I play a game like Guild Wars, I want to see as much around me as possible, at my monitor's max settings I have 180 degree vision out to the horizon. The same game on my TV? Well, resolution is lower so my view is narrower, maybe 130-140 degrees. And the refresh is much lower, lag and jumping is very visible. If you are playing a console game (or console port), then you will never notice it because it's ideal resolution is that of a TV. Here, maybe this will make it more clear. Different shots of the same game, different resolution. Guild Wars Prophecies, 800x600: Same shot, 1024x760: Now how I run with it, 1280x1024: Now this is the highest I can get on my TV, which runs at 1360x768: So pretty much it is a stretched 1024x760 resolution. Does not even come close to the 1280x1024 of my monitor. TVs can indeed work as monitors, I have actually been doing that for decades. But once we passed EGA resolutions they really became inferior (they were inferior before that, we just did not realize how much worse). Fine for watching a movie or power point presentation, but for much other then that I tend to pass on them. In fact, the only reason I use my 32" TV as my second monitor is that my second 20" monitor died and I could not justify buying another one when I had a TV a few feet away I could move and use as the second monitor.
You live in the United States brah, save up and cop one of these: http://www.monoprice.com/Product?c_id=113&cp_id=11307&cs_id=1130703&p_id=11441&seq=1&format=2 Best purchase I ever made. There's even an LED backlit 120hz model available. $570 is nothing. At least get a 1080p monitor if you like to take your resolutions to the max. They're like $200 these days.
It used to cross my mind occasionally, but I can't even get used to losing cats or old computers, so it is not really feasible.
That is with a 1080p screen. What you are linking to is not a TV, it is a monitor. Computer monitors today go well beyond 1080p. 1080p is only a resolution of 1920x1200, what you link to is 2560x1600. So you are only confirming what I say, get a monitor not a TV, the resolution of TVs sucks. It is not that simple anymore. Up until about 3-4 years ago, you could get away with just throwing in another cable line and hook it up to your TV. But since everybody is going digital, that no longer works. Today your cable company is not sending good old NTSC-PAL signals through the cable, they are sending IP packets, just like your modem does. No more analog signal, it is all digital so needs a decoder to pull out the information that becomes your TV picture. That is how they are now able to send 300+ channels of standard and HD content over a single cable (in addition to your internet).
You are giving general advice based on your very specific circumstances. Steady Pie is right, you need to upgrade your stuff, especially your monitor. That resolution and aspect ratio (1280x1024) hasn't really been used in quite some time. Yes, you can probably still find them if you look, but they are far from the norm. For years, the median resolution of both monitors and TVs has been 1920x1080 (1080p). So, for general advice, there is absolutely nothing wrong with using your TV as a computer monitor. The picture will basically look the same on both. Things will still seem more "crisp" on the monitor due to a higher pixel density (cramming the same amount of pixels into a smaller area), but the information displayed will be the same (i.e. not the scenario you describe above with the screenshots).
