MCE 2005 - TV and PC at same time?

[chrisralston]

Hey All,

I haven't been able to find a good answer on this. Here is my potential setup.

I have my computer in the same room as my home theatre setup (standard HT Receiver). I am thinking about MCE05 for my computer for all of the obvious reasons. What I am wondering is can I watch TV through my TV screen while simutaneously using the PC on the computer monitor? In other words, is the TV application within a "window" that can be moved to the TV screen (analogous to a two screen set up)? My graphics card has VGA and S-video out (MSI 6600) and have not decided on a TV tuner card yet.

Any help with those that might have a similar setup would be appreciated, as it may determine whether I get MCE05 or not.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Addikt]

TV tuners themselves are tricky in that software varies from card to card. You have to pick one that allows you to view the video in a window and then set it to run fullscreen. Move the window to the TV monitor and you're set.

If you have both VGA and S-Video out then you are fine. As you said you can set the TV to be a 2nd monitor and stream anything you want through it. The thing is that you for some video cards you are not able to run video through both the VGA and S-Video ports so you have to make sure that you set your TV as the primary monitor (that is not to say that you have to select it as #1, there is a difference, if your card does not support video on 2 monitors then you will have to configure the TV to be the one that is able to play video). Also if this is the case you will not be able to view any media on your computer at the same time i.e. you won't be able to stream video and watch TV at the same time since only one monitor (the TV) is capable of displaying video.

As for how to display video on both monitors, I have no idea haven't gone that far, you might need two video cards but that would be worst case scenario. Also I don't understand why you are routing the cable through your computer and then to the TV...you should split the signal and get an amplifier send one to the TV and one to the computer. If you have satellite there is some component you can buy to allow both the TV and computer to get different signals, but you will have to google that, my friend did it and I never though to ask how. If it won't work for you then the other possibility is that you could just rent another box for the computer itself for taping programs on different channels, but this is another worst case option.

Hope that helps a little bit, and isn't too confusing.

 

[chrisralston]

Thanks Addikt. Have you done this with MCE 2005?

So if I was able to get the TV feed to the TV, I could potentially run office applications, email, surf the internet on the computer monitor?