I've been toying around with buying an LCD TV for the bedroom, not because I want HD, but because it won't take up any floor space.
They've not come down in price enough to suit me (I'm a cheapskate :D) so I wondered about using an LCD monitor.
I'd have to hook up my DVD player to it anyway, and the player has a tuner, so... I don't have digital cable and probably never will. Being able to count the individual blades of grass on the field isn't high on my list of priorities; I just want to watch the occasional TV show.
Can I do this? It looks like it could save me a couple hunderd bucks if it's possible. I was going to go into Office Depot yesterday and ask but on second thought, I figured it was better to ask the AK Experts than to rely on some teenager who's only there for the holidays :D.

veg

I would imagine you could do this if the cables match the source equipment.

I don't have cable TV, nor do I have a standalone DVD player, and that's because my 25" TV has only one RF input. So I watch my DVDs on the PC... and my 17" LCD.

Tom

You'd be surprised how smart those younger guys in Office Depot are about this newer technology. I go there a lot for office supplies and they are pretty knowledgeable. I don't know how many "extras" they hire during the holidays like CC and BB, etc do, though.

As long as the LCD (or any TV you're looking at) has composite, S-VHS or component video input along with the audio inputs, you are good to go. Some of those LCD's don't have as fast of a refresh rate as others which will cause some pixelation/artifacts on games, fast motion video, etc but not that bad. It will definitely save you some money. This time of year will be about as cheap as they get so keep an eye on all the stores. Just my $.02.

Wait, are you trying to use an LCD monitor you already have? Or are you trying to buy one.

Thinking of buying one.

veg

well for what it's worth, for a while I had an RCA-DTC100 directv receiver. What was interesting about this particular receiver, is that while I was using it for sat programming, It also had an ATSC tuner for DTV.. nothing new, but aside from the standard composite video out, it had a standard conventional PC VGA connector for RGB out. I was able to drive a regular old Dell 17" LCD monitor with it no problem. The quality was quite good.

Using an ATSC receiver is a good idea. If you cannot find one that has an SVGA output, you could connect your SVGA monitor by using the component ports. Many ATSC receivers allow you to output either component or RGB video through the component output connectors. Therefore you would switch the output to RGB, and get a cable that breaks out the D-sub SVGA connector to RGB or build the cable yourself. Many premade cables break it out to RGB and Sync, but monitors should be able to detect sync-on-green so the extra sync connections on the cable are not used.

well for what it's worth, for a while I had an RCA-DTC100 directv receiver. What was interesting about this particular receiver, is that while I was using it for sat programming, It also had an ATSC tuner for DTV.. nothing new, but aside from the standard composite video out, it had a standard conventional PC VGA connector for RGB out. I was able to drive a regular old Dell 17" LCD monitor with it no problem. The quality was quite good.