SMD1990

Well, thank you...

As for you questions, I'm not sure what you mean by a TV with monitor support. Do you mean that you have to have a monitor or secondary TV for cases when the resolution changes and your TV can't display it? If so, I just had a thought. I don't know why this didn't come to me earlier but it didn't. You don't actually need a monitor or secondary TV to set up anything for your HDTV. If you connect the HDTV (instead of a secondary TV or monitor) to the S-VIDEO port, you can use it for times when the resolution needs to be changed. The blurriness problem will exist on that input just as it does for any other secondary TV. It'll just exist for that input though. Unless someone is short on inputs, that could be an option. Of course, a VGA monitor will be needed if reading sharp text while changing a few settings in important.

I find using my TV as a monitor to be completely worth it. It allows me to have everything on one screen instead of having a TV as well as a monitor. I mean, my DVD player and my Gamecube are connected to it. Why does the computer have to have its own screen? Despite what everyone said about it not being possible (especially at computer monitor quality), it is. It's stunning. I'm sure everything being larger also helps. That's another thing that is nice. While the pixels may technically be a smidge larger, you can make there be just enough blur so that it isn't noticable.

I don't know about if it voids any warranties. If anyone is concerned about that, I suggest you contact the manufacturer. I don't see why it would. Sony never mentioned anything to me about it voiding anything. No one has until now. Besides, you're not opening up anything on the TV or anything.

About the TV's life diminishing. I really don't know. Time will tell. My TV isn't PC Compatible. It is a normal HD LCD TV. There is no PC hook-up. It doesn't mentioning using a TV with it anywhere.

Now, there is the risk of burn-in with some types of TVs. CRT monitors have the same risk though.

Come to think of it, you might be able to damage the TV if you run your computer at too high a resolution and/or frequency. The format and frequency can be adjusted using the Catalyst Control Center. I didn't mess with that since it warned me that about possible damage to my TV if I ran it at an unsupported format and frequency.

As for the cost, it was pretty great. The TV was way overpriced. I didn't know that at the time. It cost $1500. The DVI-to-HDMI adapter cable is the most expensive of the cables. ATI's DVI-to-component is cheaper even after buying a component cable. A normal DVI-to-DVI cable is bound to be the same price or less. Anyway, the cable cost $100. The video card cost at the time around $500. It was top of the line then, however.

In total for those three parts, it cost me maybe $2100. I've looked though and you could probably get all you need for possibly a little under $1000. And that depends on the size of the TV of course.

That price estimate is for all three parts though. Many probably already have a HDTV. I'm sure a lot of games already have the graphics card that will work. The kciker will be if it is an ATI graphics card. I've never messed with any others so I don't know if they ahve software that make it possible for them.

I hope that answers everything. I just posted this for those who would like to use their TV as a monitor can know how. I'm not expecting everyone to drop what they are doing and ditch their monitors. I've just seen several threads here about using a TV as a monitor and posted a possible solution.