Don't Trash it: Use a Monitor to Watch TV

Use a Monitor to Watch TV

by Andrea Eldridge

Anyone with a monitor in their closet gathering dust has probably thought the same thing: “Why can’t I just use this to watch TV?”  You can!  As more people transition to mobile devices or upgrade their screen when replacing their PC, there are decent monitors taking up room in storage cabinets everywhere.  Before you retire your old monitor to the landfill, consider repurposing it.

You don't need a computer for the monitor to work; it can connect to a cable or satellite receiver, tuner box or movie player using the same inputs as a standard TV.  A decently sized LCD monitor (24”-32”) can make a great option for the bedroom or the kids’ play area.  Repurposing it will save you money and a trip to the local recycling depot (monitors contain toxic chemicals that are bad for the environment so they must be properly disposed of).  Even an old CRT or flat-panel monitor can be converted to receive TV signal; the age and quality of the monitor just may make the modification cost-prohibitive for the picture quality (see below for tuner box cost).

When shopping for a new monitor to use as a TV, look for one that supports HDMI input.   If you want to be able to watch HD content received over-the-air or Blu-Ray, make sure it’s HDCP Compliant.  High Definition Content Protection is like the DRM encoded into digital music.  High definition video content has similar protocols to deter piracy and your screen needs to be capable of decoding the content protection for you to be able to view it on a monitor.

Satellite and cable receiver boxes act as tuners, receiving signal, decoding HD content protections, putting video in a format that your monitor can process and sending audio to your home theater.  Users without a satellite or cable box will need an external TV tuner box in order to change channels – look for one that includes a remote control.  A TV tuner box also sends audio to external speakers or your home theater system and offers additional connection options if your monitor’s inputs don’t match your cable, satellite, antennae or DVD player’s output.

There are two basic types of TV tuner boxes on the market: digital and analog. Check the connections available on your monitor because that determines the type you need.  If you have an older CRT monitor or don’t intend to watch HD content, check out Sabrent’s Stand Alone TV Tuner (www.sabrent.com/category/video-converters/TV-LCDHR/ , about $35).  It supports a VGA connection (which most older monitors require) and is fairly easy to install.

If you have a newer monitor that is HDCP Compliant with HDMI input but don’t have a cable or satellite tuner box, consider the Channel Master CM-7001 HDTV Antenna and Cable Tuner (www.channelmasterstore.com/HD_Antenna_Tuner_CM_7001_p/cm-7001.htm, about $130).  Those who live in an area that broadcasts HD channels over-air may even save some money on cable or satellite by using the built-in HDTV antenna.

There are several ways to connect a TV tuner box to the video output from your cable, satellite, DVD player or antennae, in descending order of preference: HDMI (if available), S-Video connection, composite video or RF coaxial cable.  You could plug the raw feed from your analog cable TV or antennae directly into the RF coaxial input on the TV tuner, but you likely won't receive as many channels.  Most TV tuner boxes allow you to connect to multiple sources, so you could connect to a source for TV, a source for movies (DVD or BluRay), and perhaps a game console.

For a thorough walk through detailing how to connect an external TV tuner to your monitor, review CNet’s Digital Home DIY “Turn a computer monitor into a TV”: http://www.cnet.com/computer-monitor-to-tv/

3 Things To Do When You Set Up A New PC

Set Up A New PC: Protect, Transfer, Store

After scrimping and saving, researching and debating, you finally settle on the perfect new PC, only to realize once you get it home and plugged in that you can't get much use out of it until you get the files and programs from your old PC onto your new one. Here are my top 3 steps to set up a new PC.

If you'd have asked me three years ago how I get a new system set up like the old one, I'd have told you how lucky I was to have a team of skilled technicians to set up a new pc for me. It turns out that the magical process of migrating data to a new computer isn't so complicated after all, and most typical PC users can be up and surfing the net on their shiny new machine in no time.

#1 Do not surf unprotected:

Before you take the new system out for a spin, make sure it has an installed, up-to-date anti-virus program. This will help protect you from transferring infected files from your old PC and corrupting the data on the new one. If you aren't sure whether you have anti-virus and anti-malware protection, make your first stop on the Internet to Microsoft's website to download its Security Essentials program. Your second step is going to be to install the programs that didn't come with your new PC so that you can open the files you move over from your old system. This means if you use a budgeting program like Quicken or a photo editing program like Photoshop, you're going to want to track down the disc and any necessary registration keys so that you can get it installed on your new computer.

#2 Transfer your old files to your new computer:

 

Once you've decided the transfer method that's best for you, Windows Easy Transfer will scan your old PC for files to transfer and then ask you to select the files you want to migrate over. It will provide you with a list of programs installed on your old system not yet installed on your new one, and for those available online it will give links to the latest versions.

#3 Keep your old hard-drive:

Finally, if possible, you should keep your old drive, just in case you missed something. While it may be tempting to format the drive and get rid of it, hanging on to just the hard drive will allow you to retrieve anything you may have missed. If you are turning over your old system to the kids or selling it, consider using an imaging software such as Acronis True Image Home , which offers a free 30-day trial and allows you to create a complete copy of your hard drive that can be restored if you forget to move something onto your new machine.

One final tip. If you're still hanging on to your Commodore 64 for fear you forgot to pull something off the hard drive, drop me a note on Facebook or email me at nerdchick@callnerds.com. We can get you ready to put that gold mine up on eBay in no time.

[transcript]
Hi, I'm Ryan from Nerds on Call, and today we're going to talk about moving to a new PC. So, now that you've got your brand-new PC, you've got to get all your stuff on it. So what do you do first? The first thing you're going to want to do is install an anti-virus program on there. We recommend Microsoft Security Essentials. The reason why you want to do that right away is because it takes less than seven minutes for a computer to get infected while it's on the internet these days. So now that you've got anti- virus installed on there, the next thing you're going to want to do is install all of your programs. See, you can't move programs from an old PC to a new one, so you're going to have to locate all the discs for all the programs you used on your old one, like Quicken, PhotoShop, and all the other programs you use. Once you get all those programs collected together, install them one by one on your new PC.

The next thing you're going to want to do is move all of your data from your old PC to your new one. First, you'll need to get both of your computers set up on the same network. If you don't have a network set up, then you can buy a transfer cable from Amazon.com. To get the easy transfer, click on the "start" button, go to "accessories", and then "system tools." You can always back up your data to an external hard drive or, if you don't have a lot of data, to a little flash drive. Finally, once you've transferred all of your data, the next thing you want to do is save that old hard drive out of that old PC. The reason why is that there's no way to completely erase all of that data, and you wouldn't want it falling into someone elses hands. Not to mention, if you accidentally forgot to transfer something over to your new PC, you'll have a back-up file if you just keep that old hard drive.
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