XGA Theater - Watch TV on your Computer Monitor
by Lance Albright

 Are you ready to throw away your old TV set? Do you have too much CRT around the home – too many cathode ray tube monitors?  Wouldn’t it be cool to be able to use one monitor for your computer and your TV? That could save a lot of space and some bucks as well.  You could cruise the web checking out the best streaming videos, write and send emails, view your DVDs and video movies, and watch standard broadcast or cable TV, all on a single large monitor. You could even set this up in your den or living room as part of the ultimate computer and net enabled home theater.

 There are two ways you can share one monitor for your video and computer needs.  You can use an up-converter like the XGA Theater that converts your NTSC or PAL TV video to a high quality X-VGA or VGA video signal that will display on your computer monitor. You could also use a down converter that enables you to watch the video coming out of your computer on a standard TV using either composite (VHS) or component (S-Video) inputs. It really depends on which looks better and where you want to do your viewing.

 In my case, my computer DVD player and high-speed broadband connection are in my office, connected to a big 21-inch diagonal computer monitor. My computer monitor is bigger, and much higher quality, than the TV set I have in my bedroom, or the one that I have donated to my kids.

 You can use either a standard CRT computer monitor or an LCD monitor – you just need standard VGA inputs.

The XGA Theater is a small streamlined computer-gray box about 9 inches across, 6 inches deep and only 1.5 inches high. It is a very small TV tuner and switching unit that fits easily on a shelf, on top of your computer, or even on the computer monitor itself. Four little rubber feet keep it from marring surfaces.

 The XGA Theater ships with the remote control, power supplies and A/V cables. There is a small instruction manual but the unit is so simple you don’t really need it. You connect your computer video monitor cable to the VGA output connector. The video out from your computer connects to the VGA in connector on the XGA Theater. 

The audio out from your computer connects to the PC sound in jacks on the XGA Theater. The XGA Theater’s PC sound out cable then connects to your computer’s speakers or sound system.  You then connect the cable TV connection or antenna to the XGA Theater. Voila!

 You can also attach additional video and audio sources like a DVD player, camcorder or VCR to the XGA’s video and audio inputs. You have a choice of either regular VHS video cables or a higher quality S-video cable. Connect the power supply and stick the two AAA batteries in the remote control and you are ready to rock and roll.

 Once hooked up, you can simply toggle between TV input and computer input to your computer monitor. When you select computer video, the video and audio from your computer simply loop through the VGA Theater unit.

  The XGA Theater provides a volume control to allow you to easily control the TV or computer sound going through your sound system and speakers.

 The remote control works just like the remote control on a regular TV set or VCR. You can select which video you want to display on the computer screen – computer video, S-Video or cable/TV.  You can also scan channels and do auto recall back to the last channel. Audio controls include volume, treble, bass and MTS as well as Mono, Stereo and SAP. 

 Picture and image controls include brightness, contrast, saturation, sharpness and hue as well as OSD (on screen display) location. You can also control the resolution and toggle between full XVGA 1024x768 resolution as well as 800x600 and 640x460 pixel resolutions. TV looks really good at 1024x768!

 This is a great little device that works like a charm.  I have used built-in video tuner cards on my computer but they never looked as good as the XGA Theater. (Then again, the built-in cards also allow you to capture, save and edit video). Most other up-converter units in this price range only provide 640x480 resolution. The XGA Theater’s 1024x768 resolution blows them away.

 This could be the control unit for a powerful home theater set-up. Armed with a wireless keyboard and mouse, not only would you be able to watch DVDS, movies and TV on a large, sharp computer monitor, you could also remotely do your computer work, cruise the net, download and watch Internet videos and movies. All while sitting in your living room in front of a big computer monitor and powerful speakers.

 The XGA Theater is available from AV Toolbox for only $129. AV Toolbox also has a range of other up converters that enable your computer monitor to display TV signals as well as down converters which enable your TV set to display computer video signals.

Click to buy it - only 129!

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