A newbie question...can I use my computer in the living room?

[brewerbob]

Can I use my computer from the bedroom in the living room using the tv as a monitor and a RF keyboard?

My RF keyboard won't work that far but is there anything out there where I could use a simple laptop keyboard with a docking station or something? I want my tower to do the processing but use the tv for a monitor and have a wireless keyboard.

I know there is a couch potatoe out there somewhere that has figured out how to do this just a wire to the tv and some type of keyboard without moving the computer itself.

 

[sandorski]

Some cordless keyboards/mice will work from that distance(Logitech's work quite well). The problem, although I may be wrong, would most likely be the length of the video out cable. I don't know if you could get one long enough or whether the signal would be strong enough.

How far will it be?

 

[Workin']

Of course, your PC has TV-out capability, right? It will have to in order to use the TV as a monitor. You can get a wireless "video sender" from www.x10.com or elsewhere to send the video signal (and audio, too) to your TV from another room.

 

[DJFuji]

If you've ever tried to look at a computer display through a TV, you'll know why this isn't a good idea. Unless you're watching a DVD or playing a game with nearly no text in it, your experience with a TV for a monitor won't be very good. The monitor's resolution is so low that you can't make out any sort of detail. Games and DVDs might look ok, but dont expect to surf the web very well. Much better to invest in a computer projector instead. Then you can have a 5' tall screen and good resolution. Of course, that's why it costs $3-5k

 

[Workin']

<< Games and DVDs might look ok >>

They'll look better than OK... but text will indeed look worse than sh!t. Forget web surfing. But movies and games will rock. I have a blast playing Quake and Half-Life on my 35&quot; TV and $6000 stereo.

 

[DJFuji]

well i meant &quot;ok&quot; as in relative to a monitor-- not necessarily to directly imply that &quot;ok&quot; meant &quot;mediocre.&quot;

 

[lilnnjaboy]

quality of the TV will not be good at all. I have played my DVD and games on the TV...not worth taking off the monitor. that's why my PS2 is there to play DVD's

In terms of wireless keyboards, get the logitech keyboard and mouse combo. I think it's called the freedom pro. It has the mouse and keyboard receiver into one unit. This is a radio wave cordless keyboard and mouse...so distance within the same room is not a problem...through walls...not a good idea.

So if your lazy a$$ wants to be on the couch...there is your solution. And if you have money to spend, get yourself a plasma screen. It only costs 5000 for a 36 inch HDTV which handles 1280 X 1024 resolution.

 

[DJFuji]

what i want to know is how the hell youre supposed to read any of the text on screen from 25' away? Well, I suppose porn has relatively little text to it...

 

[Workin']

<< I have played my DVD and games on the TV...not worth taking off the monitor. >>

You must have a crappy video card and TV. DVD's played on my ATI Rage Fury Pro connected to my 35&quot; TV look about as good as DVD's played on my stand-alone Toshiba DVD player connected to the same TV. Shooter-type games are a riot on the big screen.

 

[MTDEW]

Dont you guys get those annoying lines running up the tv screen when you hook your pc up to it?

I cant stand those things, no refresh rate setting I try seems get rid of them!

 

[Workin']

<< Dont you guys get those annoying lines running up the tv screen when you hook your pc up to it? >>

Nope. You must be picking up interference from somewhere...

 

[spamboy]

yeah, i don't get interference either, perhaps you have your stereo too close?

 

[brewerbob]

I don't think plain wireless (RF) will work. Distance wise it is only 10 feet but it has to go thru 2 walls to get there. I know the Logitech's won't work because if the receivers fall off of my desk they will stop working if they bounch the wrong direction.

What I need would be a stronger set of xmitters for the keyboard and mouse (or signal repeaters). As for the video, I could run a wire (the space is a closet with the hotwater heater).

Is there anything to fit that bill?

Or could I use a 20 ft extension cord for the mouse and keyboard receivers?

 

[gogeeta13]

If you have a card with svideo out, use that. Svideo is 800x600(normal tvout is 640x480). But you may want to watch your cable lenth, I think svideo is pretty sensitive.

GL,
Andrew

 

[brewerbob]

So what to do over long distances? There has to be a way to use the computer remotely.

 

[Workin']

<< Svideo is 800x600(normal tvout is 640x480). >>

That's completely false. I don't even know where to start explaining - you have several concepts mixed up in that statement. If anyone wants to know more about that, I'd be happy to try and explain. But it's off the topic of the post so unless someone asks I'll shut up about it.

OK, so brewerbob, you still are wondering... The X10 video sender works through walls unless they are steel or lead or kryptonite. It uses 2.4GHz, mine goes through 1 stone wall, and 2 sheetrock walls, over about 25 feet. To control the computer, the X10 Mouse Remote also works through those same walls. Of course there's no keyboard, so hopefully you weren't going to do much writing. But you can control the mouse and program certain keystrokes to the buttons. But every house is different so your mileage may vary.

 

[brewerbob]

Working...First,is the x10 a brand name? Second, of what good is a mouse without the keyboard? Assuming web-surfing, how would you search &quot;cat&quot; or &quot;dog&quot;? Assuming games, the best mouse has 4 or 5 buttons, how do you control a game? Most require more inputs than that (look right, move right, shoot, jump, etc).

 

[RxL77]

Hey Workin'

Post some more info on the video resolution for TV and computer and stuff. I'm interested.

 

[lacunae]

<< Working...First,is the x10 a brand name? Second, of what good is a mouse without the keyboard? Assuming web-surfing, how would you search &quot;cat&quot; or &quot;dog&quot;? Assuming games, the best mouse has 4 or 5 buttons, how do you control a game? Most require more inputs than that (look right, move right, shoot, jump, etc). >>



yep, x10 is a brand name... they sell their products direct at www.x10.com they also make similar (compatible) products for radio shack (and rca and others)

the 2.4GHz video senders work pretty well (i have 2 sets)... they can pick up interference from microwave ovens and 2.4GHz cordless phones (and presumably other devices that use the 2.4GHz band), so that's something to consider in your use/placement of the units. also, the x10 rf remotes i've used (mouse remote and the mp3 mouse) don't have the usable range of the video senders (10' and 2 normal house/apartment walls should be fine tho)

the video senders + remote mouse is a usable solution for watching movies and such, and there are plenty of buttons that you can reprogram, but the mouse remote is probably not responsive enough for most games. also, as the sending/receiving units only use a composite/rca jacks for audio and video (not s-video), resolution is probably a bit too limited for any useful text (like web searching)

if you really need more control, there are companies making KVM (keyboard-video-mouse) extenders and switches that can let you extend to 100+ feet or even more advanced devices that can extend to 500+ feet over a single cat5 cable. figure $100-500 (or more) depending on capabilities, and then you'd probably have to add in a svga-tv converter (unless your tv has a vga port on it)

 

[Workin']

Thanks for saving me some typing, lacunae! I haven't really needed a keyboard since there is no TV-out solution (not even using s-video) that makes readable text on the TV screen unless the text size is huge. Forget reading these forums on your TV! I don't play games from the other room, just watch DVD's and play Winamp and stuff like that. I have a computer in my family room and send its output to the TV in my bedroom. For playing games (in the family room) I just have my regular mouse and keyboard on long extension cables, that has worked fine so far.

RxL77-
Regular (i.e., non-HDTV) TVs are analog, not digital, so resolution in the computer sense of the word doesn't really apply. Whereas on a computer monitor when you say, for example, 640x480 at 85Hz, that means (essentially) that the screen is divided into 640 units from left to right and 480 units from top to bottom, no more and no less, and each line is drawn one after another, and each screenfull of lines is drawn 85 times each second (85Hz).

A TV is a little different. A TV draws alternating lines over two passes of the screen. Each of these &quot;fields&quot; is drawn every 1/60th of a second, and 2 fields make up one &quot;frame&quot;, so the apparent refresh rate is 30 frames per second (or 30Hz). The standards that govern what a TV signal should be are called NTSC in North America and a few other places and PAL in the rest of the world. They are quite similar in concept except for significant differences in the timing and level of certain signals, and they are incompatible with each other. Standard NTSC video is limited to a resolution of approximately 540 horizontal scan lines, or 2- 270 line fields (compared with 480 horizontal scan lines in the computer example). The resolution of detail left-to-right is a function of the video amplifier's bandwidth, or how fast it can change the beams of electrons as they scan across the screen. Higher bandwidth = faster changes = higher apparent resolution. (This concept also applies to CRT-based computer monitors since the digital image signal from the graphics card frame buffer is converted to analog by the RAMDAC before being sent to the analog monitor). The usual way to measure horizontal (left-to-right) resolution on an analog display is by using test patterns and visually estimating where a series of needle pulses turn into a gray blob.

DVD's have up to 540 horizontal lines, hi-quality VHS tapes up to about 400 lines, and the theoretical best you can get from regular broadcast TV is 320 lines (limited by the maximum bandwidth available to a broadcast channel).

There's more to it than that, of course, and hopefully this isn't too confusing, but if you need more explanation please ask.