The Internet Enabled PC - The Wave of the Future in Home Viewing Experience
A web enabled TV is going to become the new trend of accessing the Internet. It is catching on in higher end television viewers with access to a computer with very capable video card, memory and processing power. It allows the users to send emails, surf the Internet, and interact with new forms of entertainment, all from a normal TV. To develop a web enabled television requires some planning and some equipment not sormally connected to a standard or HD TV.
There are some guidelnes to observe when using a televison in this manner. The display of a television screen is not as high-resolution as some computer monitors. This will not make much difference when displaying ASCII text or images, but can be crucial when displaying navigational buttons on a Web page or high definition video. Due to the smaller screen resolution and larger font size, less text fits on a television screen than a computer monitor. This means that some resoutions over 1024*768 are just impractical on a television monitor.
Internet on TV can be used in a variety of ways. The digital content can be displayed on the television as easily as using a PC and keyboard. Here is the suggested shopping list to build the Internet Enabled Television
What You Need to build the Internet Enabled Television
Processor: At least 2.5 Ghz Athlon/Pentium 4
Memory:768 Mb - 2 Gb
Video Card: GeForce, ATI with at least 128 MB video card
Hard Disk: 120 Gb or better (video files are large)
Interfaces: Digital Video or S-Video inputs on the television
Audio: SoundBlaster Live or better card for surround sound and other effects
Television: 32 inch or better with HD capability preferred
Bluetooth: Keyboard and Mouse to run from your convenient spot
Network: High speed Internet service provider (at least 300 - 500 KBps download)
The Internet or network enabled television has been a pursuit of ours for a couple of years. We first started thinking about the IET (Internet Enabled Television) back when we first saw the S-Video connection on the back of our new HDTV from Toshiba. The first thing we did was connect the usual S-Video devices like VHS and DVD players. Then the thought was, why don't we connect the S-Video card from the PC to the HDTV's S-Video connector. Then we started seeing the PC screen on the television as Windows booted up. The next logical connection was the audio card on the PC. We used a Y-adapter and a good quality RCA on both ends cable to connect the PC Audio to the Television audio. We were close, but not quite yet.
We needed to upgrade the video quality and for that we looked to the GeForce card from NVIDIA. The quality of the picture was not superb, we could probably use the digital connector. We looked into using this connector, but we found that the computer's picture was above VHS quality for movies that we displayed on the 36 inch screen.
We needed a connection to the Internet for the on-line content delivery. Running a cable all the way to the lower level family room was not a good idea, so we used a wireless router and wireless network interface card. The connection was up at 11 Mbps and worked great for delivering Internet radio, video and Vongo.
So, we have television audio, but what about theatre quality sound to go with it. A pair of monster audio cables to the inputs of the VCR or DVD audio inputs on a decent audio amplifier, theatre sound system, or stereo receiver is all that is needed to have high fidelity audio coming from the Internet content. This gave us a truly novel way of watching analog, digital, high-definition or Internet content delivered via the cable television system, or the Internet connection.
Now we needed to be able to control the thing from far across the living room from the comfort of our easy chair. Now that was a simple problem to solve with Bluetooth devices for the mouse and keyboard functions.