For those of you stuck watching the games on the 'net

by DesertBroncoFan on Oct 20, 2008 1:02 PM MDT Comment 9 comments

My parents live south of Tucson, only have cable and are unable to watch any Bronco games (other than SNF and MNF).

My dad is caring for my mom (who is suffering from Alzheimer's-like dementia) and she really misses seeing her Broncos playing!

I told him about ways to get the game off the Internet, but having her sit in front of the computer for the entire game would be difficult. I know that my laptop has a connection that will put out NTSC that will allow the screen to be converted to a TV signal, but he doesn't have a laptop and I'm not sure what kind of connections he does have on his computer.

So, the gist of this post is to ask all you guys that have to watch on the Internet how you watch the game? Do you sit at the computer and watch it or have some kind of converter to display the game on a TV? Does anyone know of a card or box that will convert the signal from a PC to a TV?

I appreciate any help the wise people at MHR can provide in helping this old Broncos fan help keep the spirit alive in a woman who taught him how to be a great Broncos fan.

This is a Fan-Created Comment on MileHighReport.com. The opinion here is not necessarily shared by the editorial staff of MHR

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I sympathize with your plight

but I think most of the internet feeds that people watch would just be an insult to your mother. They look terrible and require pretty good connections.

An expensive solution is a Slingbox: a receiver/transmitter that picks up the signal coming to your TV and transmits it to your computer on the internet. The key is a fast connection at the site of the TV (and reception of the Broncos games of course). If the upload isn’t fast enough, it doesn’t matter how good of a laptop or connection you are viewing it on.

Some of the benefits of the slingbox are that you can change channels from it and the signal qualtiy is as good as the TV. The downside is it is expensive and requires a good internet connection at the TV.

I hope others have some good suggestions for you. There is always KOA radio, of course….

Mountains, forest, sea: these render man fierce, but yet do not destroy the man.

by Jeremy Bolander on Oct 20, 2008 1:12 PM MDT reply actions 0 recs

I wish I could help

And I would be glad to poke around, but I would need more details about the computer and/or PC. My plasma TV came with an input for a regular PC monitor and that is what I use. But as styg mentioned the quality is not that great. It looks pretty good if the size is a quarter of the TV screen, but if I try to blow it up to fullscreen it becomes pretty fuzzy. I end up having to leave the window small and sit close to the TV. I think it beats the radio, but it is not exactly a comfortable way to watch.

I am assuming your folks have an old school TV that takes only coaxial and RCA (red/white/yellow) inputs. I will poke around and see if any of my friends know anything. I have never used a slingbox but have heard good things. Friends of friends recently moved to Colorado and I was tempted to buy them a slingbox that they could use whenever they wanted as long as they left it tuned to all Broncos games.

by MattR on Oct 20, 2008 1:23 PM MDT reply actions 0 recs

I know they have a HDTV

but not sure if they have Plasma or LCD (not that it really matters). I’ll have him look for a connection for the monitor (didn’t think of that).

"It's all over Fat Man" - Tom Jackson to John Madden 1977 AFC Championship Game

"I love your analysis of our team. Its kinda like watching a spider monkey trying to figure out a jar of peanuts.. you know whats going on.. you know whats in there, but to actually figure it out, is just a bit beyond your mental skills..."
- Bronco Dano

by DesertBroncoFan on Oct 20, 2008 2:59 PM MDT up reply actions 0 recs

not sure if the monitor connection (analog PC) is standard

I bought the “professional” version of a Panasonic plasma TV a couple years ago. IIRC the difference between the professional and consumer model was that the professional had no speakers and had the computer input, but had very few other input options whereas the consumer model had speakers and a greater variety of inputs, but may not have included the analog PC input.

by MattR on Oct 20, 2008 3:31 PM MDT up reply actions 0 recs

Your best bet here

is if the HDTV and computer have a DVI connection. That’s the one that looks a lot like the old school VGA monitor connector but is a little bit wider and the pins are much different. This will probably get you better quality on the HDTV. Even if the HDTV has a regular VGA input, you should still be able to get decent quality but the problem with an LCD (if that is what kind of TV they have) is that there is a “native resulotion”, if the signal coming in is a different resolution, then the image looks somewhere between garbage and pretty decent, depending on a number of things. I don’t know if the same thing applies to plasma or not. So, in other words, if you were to hook up a computer to an LCD TV (with VGA or DVI), you would want to set the computers resolution to the LCD’s native resultion, for a TV probably 1280×720 ("720p") or 1920×1080 (1080i/p).

Another caveat here is that you need to get the sound too. That would require RCA red/white cable with either an adapter that goes from the 1/8" jack on your sound card to the red/white RCA, or there are cables that have one end RCA and one end a 1/8" jack. The RCA cables can either be plugged into the TV or some sort of amplifier. Conversely, if the computer has speakers and the computer is set up near the TV, that could work too.

Finally, many modern graphics accelerator cards have various TV-out options, and as long as you don’t need a high-end one for gaming, they can be obtained fairly cheaply. Ideally, you would want a card that has component out, that is where the signal is split into red green and blue. This seems to be one of the more accepted ways to hook things up to an HDTV and I imagine would dodge the problem of native resolution with an LCD. Barring that, s-video is another good option. Lastly you would fall back on the good old “composite” (the yellow RCA cable) which would probably not be your best bet.

It’s a hassle, but once it works, it works. My setup fortunately involves a very large widescreen monitor for my PC, so if I’m forced to watch something on the internet, I can still relax on the couch.

Jason
The Hanging Curve

by poorboywilly on Oct 20, 2008 5:56 PM MDT up reply actions 0 recs

The internet feeds I've watched are pretty low quality.

I feed a radio signal throught the net, keep up with stats at CBS scoreboard game-center, and chat with people at MHR’s game-time threads.

Actually I’ve had more fun listening to games this year than I have for years. In fact I’m wondering why I recently got satelite TV—except for tonights game—I haven’t even watched it.

The best defense is a good offense!
I hope.

by Mike Clark on Oct 20, 2008 1:37 PM MDT reply actions 0 recs

on my 15 in laptop

living here in Phx is the same deal. My dad has cables to plug into the tv and that seems to work. i used a mac and havent tried it yet because I usually can watch a dif. game on the toob and Broncos on my comp.

For the love of the animals. 24

by Earthtiger24 on Oct 20, 2008 2:57 PM MDT reply actions 0 recs

If I weren't so lazy, I am sure I could find a cable that I could connect from my

computer to my television to clone the screen from the computer to the screen on the television. But then I wouldn’t be at my computer to talk to you fine people!

If God is not a Bronco fan, then WHY are sunsets Blue and Orange? - Jon Tollerud 5/22/08

by Tim Lynch on Oct 20, 2008 3:35 PM MDT reply actions 0 recs

Thanks for all the answers

I’ve sent an email off to my dad to see what kinds of connections the computer and TV have and will try to figure out a solution based on what I hear back.

The Slingbox does sound like a better way to get less crappy video to Tucson but she’d still have to watch the game on the computer.

I’ve found a couple different external box options that would allow for them to display the computer display on their HDTV that cost less that $100. If that works for them we may just have to go that route.

"It's all over Fat Man" - Tom Jackson to John Madden 1977 AFC Championship Game

by DesertBroncoFan on Oct 20, 2008 5:15 PM MDT reply actions 0 recs