The set-up in our house is pretty standard, with a main living area that includes kitchen, dining room, and living room, with a separate den area that contains the television and related gadgets. The difference is, that room is upstairs, not even in hearing distance of the kitchen. Andrea recently said she would sometimes like to be able to listen to the television while we’re in here cooking, particularly to catch the local news.
I spent some time researching online and looking at Best Buy and Circuit City, but never came up with anything that looked promising. I know the TVs we’re considering here are under twenty inches, and are likely LCD just to save space, but that makes them expensive, and where are we going to put it, anyway? The most likely location is right here where I’m sitting, but this space is occupied by the computer.
Of course the solution is to make the computer play TV. Why can’t the computer play TV? Seems like a simple-enough task. Luckily it looks like Plextor or Elgato can solve this one for me!
Since our goal is generic TV, the broadcast stations really, in the main living area downstairs, an over-the-air solution should work out just fine. The question now becomes, for 10% more money, should I get the HDTV version? I could dip my feet in to the HDTV waters without shelling out big bucks for a nice big HDTV. Either of these options is less expensive than buying a new LCD TV, which is about all our space down here can accomodate.
It does occur to me, though, what type of antenna would I need and how much does that cost?