Computer Video System

I mentioned in a previous post that I was thinking about connecting one of my old computers to my big screen TV. Well, I finally got around to it this past weekend and here is what I did to make it work. The computer I used was an old PIII 866Mhz with 384MB of Ram running windows XP. The first thing I had to do was get my hands on a graphics card that had some good TV output capabilities. A friend gave me an old ATI All-In-Wonder Radeon 32MB video card with S-Video output.

I connected the S-Video cable and an audio cable to my Philips DVD recorder. The Philips DVDR3575H is connected to my Philips 51" projection screen with an HDMI cable. So far so good, unfortunately, the screen resolution still needs to be set at 800 x 600 in order to see the whole display from the computer. This made the screen fuzzy and hard to read. After enlarging the screen fonts and learning how to use the magnifier which is located under the accessibility menu in XP, things started to look a little more usable.

Next, I connected a Hawking 108G wireless USB adapter so I could have access to the Internet. The final touch was adding a Micro Innovations 2.4Ghz wireless keyboard and mouse. I just happened to see this wireless keyboard/mouse combo at Walmart for $29. The package said that it had a 33 ft. range, so I thought I would give it a try. The quality is on the low end and the mouse is flaky sometimes, but XP recognized it without any additional software. I like having one USB mini plug for both keyboard and mouse. Now I can sit on my couch and surf the web.

One of the best web sites for feature films and TV shows is hulu.com. You don't have to worry about illegal content, this site is totally legit and I highly recommend it. The movies have a 30 second commercial every 15 minutes or so, and some get repetitive after a while, but this is a small price to pay for the wide selection of free films and TV shows they have to offer. The video is a little choppy with the wireless connection, but I plan on running a cable to the computer and upgrading the memory soon. Otherwise, the picture looks and sounds great in full screen mode on the big screen and it's hard to believe that it's all coming in over the Internet.