What ho one and all,

I am after a Luddites guide to home entertainments

At the moment, I use an old Dell running XP with a 20" UltraSharp monitor. It does what I need for day to day work with my photos. In the evening, we watch things on it, in the comfortable 'office chairs.' We infrequently watch live TV, frequently watch on the various 'catch up' services (iplayer; ITV Hub, etc). Also play DVD / record films from wherever (mp4) to watch at our leisure and frequently play things recorded to DVD as mp4 files.

What we would like is a larger monitor to set up another room for relaxing viewing. I understand that if I buy a larger monitor and computer, things may be OK, if the relevant montior resolution / graphics card drivers are compatible.

Alternatively, I could buy a Netbook / laptop and a larger TV. Am I correct that by plugging a netbook into a TV via HDMI, things should be OK. What is the difference between HDMI w / wo Ethernet? Where does DVI fit into the scheme of things?

Some TV's that I have been looking at have a USB connection. I understand plugging a USB thumbdrive into my computer and using a media player to play whatever in on the thumbdrive, but how does that work with a TV?

I sometimes save BBC programs as mp4, via get_iplayer; the files are around 2gb in size and look terrific on my 20£ monitor. It played on a 30" TV via a HDMI, would the image still be amazing?

As I said, Luddites questions!

Toodle pip and thanks,

Rex