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Mr. Cheap, who never watches TV, is thinking of buying an HD TV.
Why? Because I am an idiot though it will be nice to watch the Lakers beat the celtics again next June on a nice HD set.
Actually, the wife and kids do watch some TV and we just remodeled our family room and all we have now is a dying 32 inch CRT.
Anyway, some TVs are "internet ready", for a price though. What I currently do is have a laptop with wireless N pulling AVI files from another PC in the house. The laptop is S video out to the TV. Works great. As long as I maximize the fonts and minimize the screen resolution to something like 640x 480 I can read the display on the screen enough to navigate windows explorerer for files. But S video is insufficient for HD.
So with an HD TV and no HDMI out from the laptop, I am thinking of rigging another junker PC with an HDMI video card (starting at $30 I see) to replace the laptop and doing the same thing (wireless N) to access HD content from my other PCs.
Questions:
Does this sound technically feasible? Any risks in buying a cheap HDMI video card and interfacing the PC to the TV? (The TV will be 1080p, 50" or so, 600Hz).
Escape asked earlier about 5.1 from the PC to the TV; did we get a cheap solution to that (if it isn't cheap, it isn't a solution)? Or am I pretty much limited to stereo from the headphone out from the PC to RCA in on the TV?
Are there any advantages for internet ready TV over my gerryrigged plan? It seems like a PC connected to the TV is better as it is a full on PC. I've heard "internet ready" means using some simple browser and simple apps - no firefox, no WMP, etc. The only thing is the PC is connected with wires so you can't park your butt on the couch and surf unless your HDMI cable and audio cables reach the PC....which leads to my next question...
Are there wireless HDMI cables available so a person could park his butt on the couch and use the TV as a monitor?
Anything I am not thinking about?
Lessons learned?
Recommendations?
Well Mr. Cheap, you're in luck, because HDTVs are cheap,cheap,cheap these days!
Answers to your questions:
If you are technically inclined, then a standalone HTPC is superior to an internet-ready TV. As you mentioned, it can do more than the limited functions of the internet-ready TV, plus you build it yourself and can add/remove features, enhance performance, etc. at your whim.
What is the resolution of the AVI files you are playing? If they are lower resolution, they won't look very good on a 50" set.
Regarding audio, the best solution is to pass it through your HDMI cable to the TV (HDMI supports video and multi-channel audio). If your software does not allow this, the second best option in to use a optical SPDIF (digital fiber optic) connection. It can pass 5.1 and 7.1 channels to your TV via a single fiber optic cable. For better sound, I recommend you get a separate audio amp/speaker system and pass the sound from both the TV and HTPC to it via SPDIF.
In lieu of wireless HDMI (which does indeed exist), just get a wireless keyboard and mouse.
Regarding audio, the best solution is to pass it through your HDMI cable to the TV (HDMI supports video and multi-channel audio). .
Ah, I didn't know this. Now, I was planning on hooking up a 5.1 amp - not sure what input it permits - I think RCA only???? not sure, I'll have to check. How would I get 5.1 audio from the PC to the amp?
I don't have a HTPC just some plain old 1+Ghz pentiums lying around which I would buy a HDMI video card for.
And doh, I didn't think of the wireless keyboard and mouse - getting old I guess.
Right now the AVI are really low resolutions, Teletubbies, Barney, Dora stuff for kids and 700MB versions of movies. But that is right now and works for our current low definition config.
Are there HDMI video cards that also have any of these outputs which can be routed to the amp, OR would I have to get a special audio card too?
I'm not aware of any video cards that also have audio output jacks, but there might be a couple out there. If you want to use an existing 2-ch audio PC with an existing 5.1 ch speaker amp, then buying a separate multi-channel audio card is the way to go.
buying a separate multi-channel audio card is the way to go.
That's what I was thinking, it's just that I'm not familiar with all the new (new = later than 1995 for me) hardware.
So if the PC was the source, get an HDMI video card and a 5.1 audio card and output the 5.1 audio card to the amplifier and the hdmi to the tv.
I can look this up but for the sake of the thread, what are the output connections on the 5.1 audio card? Are they RCA? I think my audio input for the amp is rca so I would need an rca-rca cable. Or, are the audio card outputs something other than rca in which case I would need a cable which is rca on one end and something that mates with the audio card on the other.
So with an HD TV and no HDMI out from the laptop, I am thinking of rigging another junker PC with an HDMI video card (starting at $30 I see) to replace the laptop and doing the same thing (wireless N) to access HD content from my other PCs.
Your "junker PC" is going to struggle to decode high-def H.264 without dropping frames. Decoding H.264 (aka AVC/MPEG-4.10) is more compute intense than decoding MPEG-4.2 (aka DivX/XviD) or VC1 at the same resolution. You'll probably struggle with high-def VC-1 as well, but might be ok decoding high-def MPEG-4.2.
Netflix streaming is VC-1, and they only have 400 HD titles, so you're probably going to be ok there. AFAIK all their TV shows are 480p. To test if you will struggle with high-def VC-1, you can try finding some high-def clips that play back using Silverlight, since MS is using VC-1 for Silverlight. Or just sign up for that free month of Netflix and give it a try.
Personally, I like the convenience of having Netflix streaming support built into the TV, and any decent mass-market TV (not niche market stuff like Runco) you buy now is going to support it.
MOST multichannel PC audio cards are going to have 1/8" headphone type outputs. If your amp has RCA inputs, you need cables like this one.
Yep, that is how I am currently getting audio from my laptop to our low res CRT TV. So, it would just require more cables.
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