March 05, 2009

How to connect your TV to your PC

It seems like there's a lot of interest in how online video might kill Cable and Satellite services like DirecTV and Comcast, so I started a mini home project to see what it would be like for someone to actually try to send streaming video from a PC to a large screen TV. I know there are a lot of different ways to do this, and I figured it should be pretty easy.

I went to Fry's - the best super-retailer for everything geek in California, expecting to see some sort of all-in-one setup for this. I can't be the only person wanting to do this right? Anyway - after about an hour of searching I finally found what looked like it was going to work - a VGA to AV converter (with 3 different outputs) for about $39, and a separate 3.5" mini-jack to RCA cable for the audio ($17). I would have expected a nice all-in-one setup, but alas - the video and the audio are separate beasts. My laptop has a VGA output and a 3.5" mini headphone jack, so I was all set. (There were some other USB-based audio enhancer thingys, but these seemed like overkill.)

Now - back home to hook all this up. It seemed to be pretty straightforward, although I couldn't get my AV receiver to display the video. There's probably some menu setup I needed to do, but not being very patient, I finally just hooked all three outputs into the front of the VCR (yes - we still have one), and lo and behold - it actually worked!

I was a little concerned about the quality - since I figured attaching the output directly into the AV receiver would be better, but testing with Hulu and iTunes video - the results were totally acceptable. I was immersed into my shows, and not noticing anything horrible with the video or audio quality.

So anyway - this is totally doable. I will probably go back and play with the AV receiver some more, and maybe try to clean up the wires (which my wife hates). Eventually a wireless system would be ideal. But it works! And it's awesome. The house I'm in right now has no cable, so this is a great way to get more entertainment without spending $70+/month.

Do you have any experience hooking up your TV to your PC? Please share in the comments. I suspect a lot of people are interested in this.

Posted by Bill Dettering at 11:42 AM | Permalink | Technorati Tags: pc tv hulu itunes boxee playon roku | Comments (3)

January 09, 2006

CES 2006 - Video everywhere

Just got back from the 2006 CES show in Las Vegas. The big trend is video. Lots of video.

Video gets bigger - large screen TVs are coming down in price, and are getting bigger.

Video gets smaller - there were a remarkable number of video-playing MP3 devices. By years end, you should be able to get one for $99 from any Big Box Mart.

And more video becomes available over the Web. Read this story about Google entering the Online Video market. The curious thing is how Google decided to write their own copy-protection system. Kind of a smackdown to Microsoft, but Microsoft has the hardware relationships and Google doesn't. If Google wants people to be able to watch copy-protected video on anything but their PCs, they eventually will have to go to Windows DRM.

Or... people will just use Replay Screencast to record to WMV.

Video is great, but DRMed video sucks if it you can't transfer it to your favorite device. But will people really be watching a lot of video on those tiny-screened devices? It's gonna be an interesting year.

Posted by Bill Dettering at 01:36 AM | Permalink | Technorati Tags: ces video streaming google microsoft drm iPod itunes tv | Comments (0)