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meagan's avatar

Are TV's with pc input worth it?

Asked by meagan (4670points) August 7th, 2011

I’ve been looking for a new TV and a lot of them talk about the PC input jack. Is this something that really comes in handy?

I’d love to hear what people use this for. (And is it mac friendly?)

Thanks!

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12 Answers

Aethelflaed's avatar

Yes. I actually just got a tv, and now use it all the time to watch shows on. It’s especially nice because I can now have friends over and we can watch Captain Jack Harkness in much closer to life-size, as he was meant to be seen (and ogled), instead of this 15×15 crap or something. I don’t have cable or satillite providing me with tv, so it’s a nice way to circumvent Comcast and just go with Hulu/Amazon/Netflix/etc.

What hookups does your computer have? Can you connect via HDMI (easy-peasy), or do you need a VGA? I think HDMI hookups are pretty standard now, so if you can hook your computer up via that, it’s not really much of an upgrade so much as what Walmart has in stock.

jrpowell's avatar

I use a Mac. I use my tv for two things. One is for the Apple TV that is hooked up with HDMI. Then I have the Mac hooked up to it with VGA so it acts as a third monitor. I push a button on the remote and it switches between the two.

Paul's avatar

For the most part you do not need to worry about this as most new laptops come with a HDMI port (left) however if it does not and only has a standard VGA that would be quite important for you to look into, yes.
Image

Aethelflaed's avatar

@johnpowell What’s the difference between Apple TV and regular tvs?

meagan's avatar

@Aethelflaed How do I find which kind of port I have on my computer? I’ve got a Macbook Pro, if that helps.

I’m moving for school next week and thought this might be a good idea, because I’d like to see the streaming football games of my out of state college team. Also I thought it would come in handy with instant netflix. Thanks guys for the input :)

jrpowell's avatar

@Aethelflaed :: The Apple TV is a little box that streams stuff on your computer to your tv. It does netflix and pictures and what you have in iTunes. I set mine up with Plex so I can watch any video on my computer even if it isn’t in iTunes.

Paul's avatar

@johnpowell I’m looking into an Apple TV how would I go about “plexing” it?

Aethelflaed's avatar

@meagan VGA looks like this, and HDMI looks like this (the one in the yellow box).

@johnpowell So do you have to get it to watch stuff on your Apple computer on your tv?

jrpowell's avatar

@Aethelflaed :: Nope.. You can just plug the tv in so it looks like a second monitor and just play stuff in VLC.

meagan's avatar

@Aethelflaed I don’t think I have either.
Here are a list of my ports :
Gigabit Ethernet port
FireWire 800 port (up to 800 Mbps)
Two USB 2.0 ports (up to 480 Mbps)
Thunderbolt port (up to 10 Gbps)

Aethelflaed's avatar

@meagan What computer model is it?

jrpowell's avatar

If you have Thunderbolt here are your options. And, yes, I did copy and paste this. So you will need a adapter but those are pretty cheap.

Thunderbolt digital video output:

Native Mini DisplayPort output
DVI output using Mini DisplayPort to DVI Adapter (optional)
VGA output using Mini DisplayPort to VGA Adapter (optional)
Dual-link DVI output using Mini DisplayPort to Dual-Link DVI Adapter supports 30-inch Apple Cinema HD Display (optional)
HDMI audio and video output using a third-party Mini DisplayPort to HDMI Adapter

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