Using Monitor as a TV ???

[econnors]

I have very little space on my 33' boat - not enough fot a 20" CRT TV.

Can I use a 19" LCD Monitor to watch TV ? Or, should I just buy a 20" LCD TV ?

What equipment is needed for Analog Cable, VCR, and DVD inputs ? What equipment is recommeded for good quality at minimum cost ?

Will I still be able to adjust the TV, program the VCR, etc. ? What about sound ?

I'm not interested in HD at this time, but if the equipment can be upgraded later at modest cost, that would be OK.

 

[Matthias99]

If you just want to be able to watch TV, get an LCD TV.

If you need a computer *and* want to be able to watch TV, get a tv tuner card (search for numerous, numerous threads) or a video card with a TV tuner built in (such as an ATI "All-In-Wonder" or NVIDIA "Personal Cinema" model). Then you plug your video inputs (whatever they are) into the PC, and it displays the video in a window (or fullscreen) on your monitor. SDTV generally doesn't look great if you blow it up real big on a high-res computer monitor. If you get an HD capture card, you will be able to watch OTA HDTV.

You normally adjust the TV and program the VCR however you did it before. You can get IR blasters to control remote-controllable devices, but that's a little beyond the scope of this thread. You plug your audio either into the capture card or into your sound card's line-in (depending what kind of capture card you get). Then it plays through your computer speakers.

Please search and read the other gazillion threads about this first if you have more questions...