Stryker223 wrote:I bought an HP media pc 3-4 months ago and I want to hook it up to my tv so I can view video files from the pc and also use the tv as a second monitor. The tv
has a dvi jack and the pc has a hdmi jack so I got the proper cables but I can't get it to work. It must be something to do with the software settings on the pc
but I can't figure it out.

Another problem I have is we just upgraded to digital cable which means we have a cable control box so we can get the higher end channels. If I hook the pc up to the cable box, I can't get any tv on my pc and I also can't get online, I'm on cable internet also. I don't know if this might be a
software problem or not.

My pc is an HP Pavilion m9058n with Windows Vista Ultimate. I use Windows Media Center to control my video. My tuner is a ViXS Pure TV-U 4880, might be 48B0, (NTSC/ATSC Combo). Under the Video processors in dervice manager, it also shows, ADS Instant HDTV PCI.I think the controlling software program is NVIDIA. I hope I've given you everything you need to help me figure out the problem!

Thanks up front and take care!!!!

Michael

That problem is due to digital cable being encrypted. Thus, you need the cable box in order to tune in the channels and un-encrypt them. Now, how do you have the cable box hooked to the computer? By way of a coax cable (same type of cable the comes into your cable box)? If so, then you need to set the tuner card's tuner to channel 3 or 4 (depends on how it is set). It should then work. But, you then must use the cable box to change channels. Or do you have it coming in by an S-Video or RCA video cable? If so, then you need the tuner card/software set to use the video input. And again you will have to change channels by using the cable box NOT the tuner in the computer. To my knowledge, there are NO computer tuner cards that can be used with digital cable such that the tuner card controls which channel you are watching...except one from ATI that requires a CableCard and is only available on certain prebuilt computers from specific computer manufacturers. There are no tuner cards that will work with satellite such that the tuner card will control which channel you watch. The only thing that digital tuner cards (assuming you have a digital tuner card) will work with such that the tuner card is used to select channels is over the air digital channels (i.e. anntenna signals).

I am not completely sure if I will be able to help with the first problem...but let's see. Have you tried going into the Display Settings? In Vista, this can be done by right clicking on the desktop and selecting Personalize from the popup menu. In the resulting window, click on the Display Setting option. In the resulting window, you should see what is meant to represent your monitors and a several options. If the computer is reconizing the TV as a second monitor, it should show two rectangles...one with a 1 in it that should be highlighted and one with a 2 in it that is greyed out. If so, then click on the second monitor representation and then click on the check box that says "Extend the desktop onto this monitor" and then hit Apply. That should activate the TV as a second monitor. IF there is only one monitor being shown, then you might have to click on the Advanced Settings... button. This should open up a new dialog box/window. One of the tabs in that window should be for your graphics card and should somewhere have some settings for activating the output to the TV....you might have to play around with it some.

I will also note that no matter what you do, the resolution on a TV will most likely pale in comparison to a computer monitor...at in appearance. Keep in mind that a 1080i/1080p HDTV is equivalent to a resolution of 1920x1080, which is common for about a 24 or so inch monitor. Thus, if your 1080p/1080i HDTV is something like a 42 inch screen, it will DEFINITELY appear blurry compared to a 24 inch monitor running at the same resolution of 1920x1200, especially if you are sitting as close to that 42 inch screen as you would normally sit to a 24 in computer monitor. And the if TV is only capable of 720p, then that is equivalent to a resolution of 1280x720, which is the common resolution for about a 17 inch monitor. The point is that no matter what you do, a TV is no computer monitor.