Confessions of a Cheapskate

Tell people you don’t have television, and they look at you strangely. Some get visibly upset.  Others get angry- especially when they know we have children.  They want child protective services to intervene. It has to be abuse of some sort. What kind of person doesn’t have TV?

They’ll want to know if you joined a cult, there will be an intervention. It’s a very difficult and trying time, and people want to help you through it. Whether you want them to or not. We’ve hooked our computer to our TV to alleviate the peer pressure, and provide some low priced entertainment. More on the how-to in a bit.

The odd part is that we went two years with a stove that the oven didn’t work in. We asked around, does anybody have a spare? One person told us yes, but it was buried in the garage and they didn’t want to dig it out. Others knew someone who had a spare, but it would be an imposition to ask.

When our son was 4, he knocked the TV off the entertainment center and broke it (although, in his defense, he was trying to hook up his video game, and he’s more qualified than his parents to do so). Within days, we had several offers for people to loan us, give us, or buy us a new TV.

America definitely has an entertainment priority.

The problem is that this goes completely against the Cheapskate Code. Or, for the newbie, look at it this way: is cable TV really worth it?

Well, first, take $4.00. 4 little single $1 bills.  Put it in a bowl next to your Television. Repeat this tomorrow- no matter what. It doesn’t matter if you watch a 1/2 hour of TV, a two hour movie, or aren’t going to be home at all to even turn on the TV- you have to put $4.00 a day in that bowl. Repeat this every day for thirty days.

Now it’s day 30. It’s time to pay the cable bill.  Do you really want to give this bowl to your cable company? That’s $120.00 you spent for the privilege of accessing the telly. Are you really going to hand that bowl over to those guys, or would that money be better spent on something else?

The question you really have to ask yourself is why you are watching the boob tube. Is it really that important that you can’t live without it?

What are the options? Stealing cable isn’t recommended- Nor is having a hacked dish. There’s legal ramifications- like it’s illegal. As in stealing. You could go back to the old days of an antenna on the roof 3 channels, and crappy reception when there’s a storm. Oh, wait- the dish guys still have that problem.

It really comes down to a matter of priorities. You could just Stop watching TV. We’ve tried that- successfully I might add. I’m not talking about 2 days when we were up north camping and “roughing” it. I’m talking about 9 months at home, no cable TV,  no antennas, nothing. The problem was the aforementioned interventions and arguments.

Unfortunately, we caved to peer pressure. We’ve done the dish. We’ve done cable TV. We compared both to our quality of life during the time period when we went without TV, and determined while TV does provide some entertainment, we didn’t think it was worth the monthly investment we were paying out.

It came down to a simple choice. Do we continue to pay almost $1000 a year for cable TV, or would that money be better spent on things like computers for the children, or eating out once a week with the family?

Several things have made this decision easier for us.

1. We can’t live without internet access. Jenn works from home, and requires it for work. I also require internet access from home to handle my job as well. If that same internet that we require for work also provides entertainment, it’s a free perk.

2. Netflix allows access to numerous on demand movies that you can watch right on your computer. (Or TV, though danged if I am going to pay retail price for one of their boxes)- even with their basic movie packages. We’re talking about $15.00 a month for a few newer releases at home and access to all these movies. On demand. Without a DVR.

3. The launch of Hulu, providing access to numerous TV shows and movies (CSI, Fringe, Colbert Report, Daily Show, Family Guy, House Hunters, Curb Appeal would be the ones our family watches) for free- again, on Demand.

4. The local library system rents movies for .50 cents a piece.

Realistically, then, for as much as we watch movies, we can gorge on movies, watch TV, and budget this all for about $25.00 a month. That’s a whole helluva lot easier to swallow at less than $1.00 a day, for the whole family.

The first, and most obvious complaint is that “I don’t want to watch movies on my PC and Laptop. I want to watch TV, from the comfort of my chair.”

We feel the same way, though Jenn and I prefer to cuddle on the couch together.

The obvious solution is to hook your TV to your computer.

So, how do you connect your computer to your TV?

Simple, really. A TV is really just a monitor. The question comes down to what type of input does your TV have, and what type of output does your PC have.

The first thing I’ll warn you to stay clear of is adapters. For example, a VGA to S-Video adapter cable probably isn’t going to work. The majority of VGA Chipset manufacturers don’t provide the proper support for this to work. Your ten dollar adapter is going to give you a bunch of squiggly lines- which isn’t a practical investment. You need a direct, adapterless method.

I’d suggest making sure your computer can handle full screen video before you dig much further into this project. Go to Hulu.com, youtube.com, etc and watch a video in full screen before you do anything else. If your video stutters, your computer needs updating/replacing/fixing, or your internet connection sucks. That will require some troubleshooting outside of this article.

Our computer didn’t have this problem, so we could proceed. In our case, we were surprised to realize that our PC had an S-Video jack in the video card. I’ve noted that several laptops seem to already have this option as well. Other options are becoming more practical with the explosions of flat screens- DVI outputs, HDMI outputs, etc. The main point is you need a direct cable connection between your TV and computer.

If your PC doesn’t have this connection, your cheapest option is going to be to add a video card that has the capability. For example, a run of the mill video card with S-Video out can be found for less than $40 all day long on the internet. Straight DVI or HDMI connections will work as well- the main thing is that your TV must plug into your PC without adapters, or you are asking for trouble and headaches.

But, back to our particular instance- S-Video.

First; S-video only handles Video, not Audio. We’ll get back to this, but it’s important to keep in mind.  How do you know if you have S-Video on your TV and computer? Really simple. Look for the S-video jack where your monitor plugs into your computer and on the back of your TV. It’s looks like this on both your computer and your TV:

If your computer doesn’t have this connection, and it’s a PC, you can get a new video card. They are pretty cheap, and not hard to install at all.  Once this problem is solved, Then you need a cable to go between them.

It’s pretty straightforward. Plug one into the PC, the other into the TV.

This shows the back of our PC. You can see the S-video plugging in just above the VGA monitor plug.

Turn on the TV, switch to S-Video. I’m assuming your PC is already on. You probably won’t have video on your TV yet- DON’T PANIC. We just need to set it up on the PC.

To set it up, go to Start>Control Panel>Display.

Click on the Tab that says settings. Find the button that says Advance.

Our PC (Dell GX320) has a ATI Radeon X300. ATI provides software called Catalyst that has a simple, easy to use wizard.

I got lazy with the screenshots and actually used a camera. Cheap=Lazy sometimes.

I recommend cloned displays to avoid confusing yourself when using the PC.  Otherwise extended desktops, etc will seem strange when the TV is off and your mouse dissappears off the screen. More advanced users will have no trouble- but for the basic setup, go with Cloned and play with it later.

After you finish the wizard, you should see your desktop on both the monitor and your TV.

The last step is Audio. S-Video doesn’t send Audio to the TV. We have a basic Powered subwoofer stereo speaker set we picked up on clearance we love. We’re not technophiles; surround isn’t a requirement.

So, we just put the speakers on top of the TV, and plugged them into the PC. You could also use RCA cables, and run it into your TV for Audio. Our TV speakers suck, our powered speakers rock. So we went with the powered speakers.

At this point, you should be able to go watch streaming videos online in full screen mode, and watch it right on your Television.

The last problem is using your PC as a DVD player. Most PC’s have DVD drives. About 1/2 of those can play DVD’s without any trouble. If Windows Media throws a fit about not having a codec, get a free DVD player for your PC.  Don’t pay money for a Codec or a new program- it violates the Cheapskate Code.

So, now we don’t pay for Cable TV, have a plethora of programming choices, and are no longer hassled (as much) about not having “real” TV.