Something told me it was time to replace my digital video recorder. Maybe it was the overloaded hard drive. Or the annoying monthly fee. Or perhaps the fact that, after two years, my wife had finally figured out how it worked. So I told her what we needed.
"A computer in the TV room?"
"Not just a computer," I argued, "but a Beltway Avocado Deluxe 583 with a 3.2 GHz Pentium Extreme processor, a full gig of RAM, a 250 GB hard drive, and Microsoft Windows XP Media Center. Think of it! Our TV will have all the power and flexibility of Microsoft Windows!"
"You mean the Microsoft Windows you've ruined your voice screaming at?"
Unable to convince her, I just went out and bought the damn thing.
When I set it up, I briefly wondered what to do with the monitor. Who needs one when you have a 60-inch Octopus gas plasma TV that represents what might have been your child's college education. Still, the Beltway came with a very nice 19-inch LCD...what the hell, I could always use it as a serving tray.
Connecting the computer to the TV had me stumped for a moment. With the old DVR I had used component video. Or was it composite video? Compost video? Whatever. I just knew that one with a single plug had to be more advanced than the one with three.
The Duller Image
But the Beltway didn't have a compost video connection, just S-Video and DVI. I tried S-Video and it worked, in that I got something on the screen. True, it looked vaguely like...well, do you know how Windows looks when your contact lenses have just dropped out of your eyes and into your sixth pint?
S-Video was blurry, so I tried DVI. Was that sharper? It's hard to tell. There's not much detail in a blank screen. I tried Beltway technical support and followed their suggestions to the letter, but reinstalling Windows didn't help.
Finally, in total desperation, I pressed the Menu button on my TV's remote control. Who would have guessed that the DVI interface had a PC option!
The picture looked great! Windows worked! I went about setting all those vital options so necessary to get the OS working properly—like wallpaper.
I soon had a working computer attached to my television. I could play minesweeper on a screen that was wider than the deficit. Now if the keyboard and mouse only stretched back to the couch.
Right. It came with a remote. With that in hand (and a few more installations), I could watch my computer on TV in perfect, domestic comfort. But until I could watch something mind-numbingly stupid, it wasn't television. So I hooked up the cable source to the PC's tuner card and launched the Media Center program.
And the TV went blank.
There was no signal. I rebooted the computer and everything was fine. So I launched the Media Center program and the TV went blank.
The Beltway documentation had nothing on it. I tried tech support again. Reformatting the hard drive still didn't work. I decided to look for a solution online, but I could find nothing. Perhaps, I figured, I need to hook the PC up to the Internet.
The World Outside
The Beltway came with both Ethernet and WiFi. Since the router was in my office and the TV was in the den at the other end of the house, WiFi was the obvious solution. Except that the signal, which managed to serve our deadbeat neighbors, didn't reach into the den.
I ran to the local Computer and Chocolate Emporium and bought the longest Ethernet cable available. This I ran through doorways, along ceilings, and six inches above various floors to the den, where I plugged it into a WiFi access point and got a perfect wireless signal.
Once online, I did some research and found out why the TV blanked. While the computer used a DVI-I interface, the TV used DVI-D, a modest difference designed to promote
incompatibility. The recommended solution was a special cable that converts DVI-I to VGA, connected to another that converts VGA to SCSI, and finally a third that converts the SCSI to hieroglyphics.
Maybe I didn't need the TV. I went back to the monitor that had come with the Beltway, removed the cheese and crackers, and plugged it in.
I was finally able to launch the Media Center software and run the setup for receiving my cable TV signal. Except that Media Center couldn't see the cable TV signal.
I suspected I'd have to call technical support again, but to save time, first I reformatted my hard drive. It didn't work. So I called tech support, and found I why. I needed to update my video, sound, and TV tuner drivers, do some major Registry editing, and then reformat my hard drive.
I was in the middle of the updates when my wife came home and took a look at my handiwork. "This is so great!" I exclaimed before she could say a word. "We now own the world's greatest DVR, which also happens to be the world's greatest personal computer. And it will work beautifully as soon as I've upgraded the drivers, reconfigured Windows, and figured out a way to make it work with the television!"
She was speechless.
© Copyright 2005 by Lincoln Spector |
