Luddite guide to Home entertainment

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

We used my brothers 54 inch tv to go through the family heirloom pictures. Used a VGA cable and did not worry about audio.
It now is his permanent monitor.

It seems most TVs only support MPEG, maybee some MP4.

The USB port in many TVs was more of a thought for pictures or just providing 5V power to a device. If they do support movies it is a very limited format as being able to support more formats requires not just more processing power, but also having to pay for different codecs. That is not even getting into conflict of interests, like sony (the owner of Blu-Ray format that gets royalty for every Blu-Ray disc made) had very few products that support mkv file format that many hd movies are decoded to.

So far .jpg pictures play fine.

HDMI carries audio

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HDMI (High-Definition Multimedia Interface) is a proprietary audio/video interface for transferring uncompressed video data and compressed or uncompressed digital audio data from an HDMI-compliant source device, such as a display controller, to a compatible computer monitor, video projector, digital television, or digital audio device.[4] HDMI is a digital replacement for analog video standards.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HDMI

Stick with that. The cables are cheaper than the others now.

As for audio, I hope some one can help out there. Being deaf, I use CC .

I use a core i5 desktop w/8Gigs of RAM connected to my 40" TV as a media server via HDMI. Works perfectly for everything I need.. USB, internet streaming, DVD's, Pics, Sports, etc. It has built in graphics on the ASUS motherboard and that works fine but if I were to want to play any games I'm sure I'd need a higher end graphics card. My computer is wired by cat5 cable to my router for a better and more consistent quality data connection. Unless restricted by distance or walls etc I would always do that over wireless which can sometimes be slow or intermittent depending on circumstances.

I use many different mid to high quality laptops at work to do much the same thing with generally good results but I would not recommend using any netbook for the task.. most can barely run themselves let alone an extension TV screen or projector.

Worth noting is that there are also many dedicated TV media devices on the market that can do much the same thing (but not usually for free).. eg

http://www.toptenreviews.com/electro...media-servers/

Thanks for the replies. Looks like a large(er) screen TV connected to a refurbished computer will be the way to go.

The next thing is of course, that the wall connections are not where we are likely to place the screen and I don't like cables running along the wall. I also am not a fan of wi-fi, so was wondering about this:

Attachment 14049

Couple of things I don't understand. The blurb implies that it is for internet connection for a TV set-top box. Presumably if plugged into the Ethernet port of a computer in the bedroom, it will provide full internet access?

Second, my router is as the top half of this image; we currently have two computers plugged into ports 1 and 2. If port one now goes to this adaptor, where do I plug my computer in? This adaptor only has one Ethernet socket on the top. Obviously, at the other end, it will be the computer in the bedroom.

There are a number of power line LAN adapter kits available so you'd probably want to do some googling and comparing reviews and recommendations. I've never used one so I can't say much about choices but basically you'd plug the nearest, transmitting hub into an open port on the router and leave the existing network as it is right now.

Thanks. Seems there are power-line adaptors with two Ethernet ports, so not sure if I had a two port, I plug the router into one and my computer into the other? The other end (ie, the bedroom) is not an issue.

Then there is speed. Paying a lot more for greater speed if it is not available is just a waste. But what do I know?

With more research, I now see that connecting a TV monitor to computer is easy peasy.

However, if a 30" TV, has for example, a resolution of 1920 x 1080 but the laptop screen adaptor does not go that big, what happens?

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if a 30" TV, has for example, a resolution of 1920 x 1080 but the laptop screen adaptor does not go that big, what happens?

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When dealing with that situation at work I set it to the closest available resolution. Results are generally quite acceptable. I rarely run into a modern laptop or PC that can't deal with 1920 x 1080 though.

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Seems there are power-line adaptors with two Ethernet ports, so not sure if I had a two port, I plug the router into one and my computer into the other?

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You may want to start another thread in the networking forum for that subject.

Maybe. . .
http://techtalk.currys.co.uk/tv-gami...-the-internet/


Son-in-law uses wireless through a Netgear Nighthawk R7000 router.