Convergence is so simple, why not try it?

from PC to TV_0486
Originally uploaded by gtveloce

Converge what, you ask? Well PC and TV, for starters. (FM radio gets thrown in as well, if you want). OK, it's hardly new (my home PC was always in the lounge room, at least until I got married!) but finally I have found a way to sell the idea to the family: it's more sociable in the lounge room, and we can see what they are seeing without prying (they are 10 yo and under and sometimes the Internet can be a wild place).

Problem: the kids are hogging the PCs to watch YouTube or do school research, but it's hard to monitor exactly what they are watching, tucked away in the study or wherever.

Solution: so let's move a PC into the lounge room and run it through the family-room audio and video gear. Let's converge the PC with the consumer AV gear.

The details: I hooked up the kid's PC (2006 vintage) to the old (1997 vintage) composite-only analog TV via the standard D-shell VGA. I also fed it through an existing analog PVR (with 250gb HDD). I fired the sound thru a Logitech 5.1 system via a 2-in 1-out switch to allow a swap between the DTV-B STB's audio and the PC audio-out.

But was it easy? Yes and no. The longer story is that I initially set it up to "clone" the PC monitor across to the TV, but the nVidia-chipped video card gave up the ghost, forcing me to load up the Intel drivers and revert to standard, integrated graphics. Instead of buying a new graphics card with cloning ability (either an ADD2 card or a new nVidia card) I bought a box that takes the VGA and makes it either composite or s-video. It works at least as well as cloning and gives me the option to go to higher refresh rates and resolutions whilst still using composite on the old analog TV. Yeah, it's unreadable at higher res and I'm only running 800x600 @75, but it does work better than expected.

The main "green" stereo 3.5mm audio out (of the PC) is split into two standard red and white female RCAs, then joined to the switch (so I can toggle between audio sources). The video is VGA D-shell to "PC-to-TV" converter, then by "yellow" RCA to composite-in on the analog PVR (which has a built-in source switch function, so I can toggle from PC to STB and back. (The STB is available on S-video.)

If your video card actually works, just use composite-out and use the graphics card settings to choose "clone". You may have to force the card to recognise the old TV (in Windows XP it'll be a "default monitor". Adjust PC display resolution to 800x600 for older, SD TVs and it should work fine.