Looking to use a monitor as an SD/HD set

[Neos]

I am looking to use a monitor, say a Dell 22" as a TV in my bedroom - as well as it being a PC monitor.
In thinking on this I know that I need a TV card. What I have seen so far in TV cards is that they are input only - so the connection from my Dish reciever will go into the card - and will be output through PC itself to the monitor.
Right so far?

The next point is sound. Will it be through the PC audio jacks to the speakers?

The last question is perspective, or ratio.
On my 42" PDP I can set the ratio to various setting - depending on the signal content. Is this an option I will be bale to use in a setup like this, or is it going to fill the screen all the time to the monitors native resolution?

Any pointers appreciated. It may be that I go to an actual integrated LCD panel, if a monitor means that I would be viewing odd ratios on some programming.

Thanks

 

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: Neos
I am looking to use a monitor, say a Dell 22" as a TV in my bedroom - as well as it being a PC monitor.
In thinking on this I know that I need a TV card. What I have seen so far in TV cards is that they are input only - so the connection from my Dish reciever will go into the card - and will be output through PC itself to the monitor.
Right so far?

Yep.

The next point is sound. Will it be through the PC audio jacks to the speakers?

It'll go wherever you plug the wires in.

For synchronization purposes, it should follow the video processing -- that is, you should feed it through the capture card into the PC, and then listen to the sound through the PC's audio outputs.

The last question is perspective, or ratio.
On my 42" PDP I can set the ratio to various setting - depending on the signal content. Is this an option I will be bale to use in a setup like this, or is it going to fill the screen all the time to the monitors native resolution?

Depends on what you're using to watch it on the PC. The monitor will just display whatever the PC outputs. DVD playback software usually has the ability to play around more with scaling (for instance, to take 4:3 video and stretch it to 16:9), but whatever comes with your capture card may not.

Usually the default when you make something 'fullscreen' is to keep the same AR and just scale it up so it as big as possible without cutting anything off. If you play around with things like ffdshow you may be able to have more control over it, but you may not have extensive scaling capabilities out of the box.

 

[SickBeast]

You should put the money you would spend on a TV tuner towards a 24" Dell monitor. I'm currently using my 2405FPW hooked up to a satellite dish to watch HDTV and it looks *amazing*.

If you use the RCA/S-Video input on a TV-tuner you will not get HD or a progressive scan image. Make sure your display has either component or DVI inputs.