Monday, August 31, 2009

On the big screen

We now have our new computer hooked up to our 46" LCD TV in the living room. It has a wireless internet card so I'm actually writing this blog on our TV. We have a wireless keyboard and mouse that we use on a lap desk. We did have to zoom in the font scaling so that we could read everything from the couch.

The computer also has a blue-ray player so we'll be able to get the blue-ray discs from Netflix. We've also used the Netflix "watch it now" feature to stream TV shows and movies to the TV. We can watch the current prime-time TV shows by going to shows' websites. It's not as good as high definition tv, but it's as good as the analog cable was. The real benefit is that we will actually save money by canceling our satellite dish plan.

Some friends and family have asked how we did this. We bought a computer that has a really good video card specifically designed for this kind of setup. Then we also purchased an HDMI cord that will send the digital video signal out of the computer. This cord along with the digital sound cord go from the computer to our surround sound system which is hooked to the TV. We already had to use several remote controls with the satellite system and our surround sound, so we are used to having a complicated setup.

The only drawback really has been that the twins always want to play with the keyboard when we are. We have a program that shows the letters with sounds when they do this, so they want to play every time it's out.

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