tv screen as monitor

You'd need a converter or a new video card. Get a free monitor from

In general, this won't work. A TV operates at much lower frequencies (horizontal rates) than even the lowest-res mode of the typical computer monitor. (640 x 480 at 60 Hz, the original "60 Hz VGA" mode, was made so that it's exactly twice the line rate of standard TV.)

Some PCs may provide a TV output, in the form of an S-Video or composite video connector, but don't expect anything near the image quality you get on an actual PC monitor.

Bob M.

Even thirty years ago, it was a less than optimal solution, because the bandwidth of the video signal from a computer that had a descent number of characters on the screen was more than a tv set could handle.

The use of tv sets as monitors was a stop-gap, at a time when monitors weren't very common, and people weren't willing to spend the money.

But now it's a far worse solution. Not only have computers gone to much higher definition output, but they no longer use the synch standards of the tv sets. So even if it was a "simple" matter of connecting a video card to the tv set, it wouldn't work.

Michael

If your computer (or its video card) has a 'TV-out' then you just need the appropriate cable. Usually, that would be S-Video or composite. If your computer/video card doesn't have TV-out then get a new monitor, get a new video card with TV-out or get a 'scan converter', which will perform the non-trivial conversion from monitor signals to TV signals. Scan converters cost more than most video cards and more than many monitors, so that's not really a very viable option.

Using a TV as a monitor really is an emergency-only thing. You can expect perhaps 640x480 resolution, it'll be fuzzy as hell compared to a real monitor and thanks to TVs being interlaced, it'll flicker.

Tim

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