Help me get my fix

[naomikritzer]

So, sometime last year, my friend Rick sent me the DVDs for Season I of Battlestar Galactica. I am now firmly hooked on the show. The problem is, we don't get cable. And the ridiculous zillion-channel package that includes the SciFi channel costs a lot of money.

Now, you can download the show from iTunes (not for free, but for a lot less than cable), and watch it that way. But, our computers are in the home office, which is just not a comfortable place to kick back and watch TV.

I own a laptop, and it seems like there ought to be some straightforward way to connect my laptop to the TV and watch it that way. I called Best Buy and talked to a salesman. He says that there's a $20 cable that would do the trick if I had an HDTV. Alas, our TV is a regular old non-HD model. He says that a regular TV can't show a digital video file, which is what iTunes downloads.

So, I called the Apple store and talked to a guy there. A Video iPod can plug in (via a $20 cable) to a regular TV. But, it has to be a Video iPod (according to the salesman) -- the cheaper ones don't work.

It would cost us $350 to buy a HDTV the same size as the TV we have now, with a PC input. (That's the cheapest model. Obviously, they have higher end models that they would loooooooove to show us.) Plus $20 for a cable. Minus the $60 it will cost us to buy a converter when they stop broadcasting

It would cost us $250 to buy a Video iPod, plus $20 for the cable.

Here is my question. Is there another (cheaper) option here? A little magic box (cheaper than an iPod) to convert digital to video signal, or a special cable? I should note here that my laptop is not new, either; it has USB1 ports, not USB2, which may limit our options. Ed's computer may have USB2, but it isn't a laptop. (The iPod wants a USB2 port.) My laptop is starting to feel old and creaky, but I'd rather not replace it until I have some work-related reason to.

If we have to buy an HDTV or an iPod, Ed would prefer the new TV. Yes, iPods are cool and all, but neither one of us likes to listen to music with headphones, and we don't find CDs so cumbersome that we want to go to the trouble of ripping all our CDs to MP3 just so that we can use the iPod to listen to them. Whereas, Ed has heard that the picture really is noticeably better on a high-definition TV.

Thoughts?

Comments

[tltrent.livejournal.com]

We're watching BSG via Netflix. Works pretty well for us and you can join at any level from $5.99/month and up.

[naomikritzer]

Can you watch current episodes on Netflix? I thought you could only get stuff that was out on DVD...

[tltrent.livejournal.com]

Duh. Sorry. I misread this to mean that you were trying to find a way to get Season 2/past eps. Nevermind. ;)

[penmage.livejournal.com]

I'm really not an expert at this stuff, but I can tell you that N and I used to link our laptop to our TV with a pretty simple, not too expensive cable, and watch stuff that played on the laptop on the TV. And I really don't think that our old TV was HDTV.

If you haven't found a solution by later, I'll try to ask him when he gets home and see what he says.

[naomikritzer]

Hmmm, if you could give me more details about that cable, and whether any software went with it, that would be very cool.

[penmage.livejournal.com]

N would like to know if you have an S-video port on your laptop. (It's round, much larger than a headphone port, has little dots where prongs would go in.)

[penmage.livejournal.com]

If you do, you can buy one here (http://www.svideo.com/svideorca.html) (the top one will work just fine; you can get a longer one if you please.) I have it on good authority that you can find them cheaper, too. But either way, they're not too expensive. The other side plugs into your TV.

If you don't have an s-video port, it gets a little more complicated, but it can still be done.

[penmage.livejournal.com]

Oh, and if you don't have an s-video port, you need something like this (http://www.svideo.com/vga2video2.html).

By the way, if you do have an s-video port, and you get the previously aformentioned cable, you'll need to get an audio cable as well. The website we showed you sells cords that have audio as well as video, but according to N, you can buy a seperate audio cord anywhere for cheap, so if buying them together seriously hikes up the price of the cord, it's better to buy them seperately.

[naomikritzer]

Okay, awesome. That looks like exactly what I want, much cheaper than an iPod.

I do not have an s-video port. I don't think I do, anyway -- I see a round port with pins but it has a picture of something like a mouse next to it. I think it's where I plugged in my mouse before I upgraded to a mouse that uses the USB port.

[penmage.livejournal.com]

I think you need some sort of cable to go with that little guy, but I'm not sure if it's the s-video port, or a different one. Either way, I don't think it's too complicated, but again - when N gets back again, I'll ask him.

By the bye, N had a good long laugh at your Best Buy guy who told you that without HDTV it wasn't possible.

[swords-and-pens.livejournal.com]

You could ask a friend in your writer's group who has a DVR to record the episodes (which he does anyhow) and burn them to tape or DVD. But, gee, who would fit THAT wild profile???

[naomikritzer]

You're already going to need to do that for Lyda. Just how many DVDs do you want to have to burn each week?

[swords-and-pens.livejournal.com]

Okay, here's a radical question: can you burn DVDs of BSG from your home computer? Or does iTunes keep you from burning a copy for some stupid reason? I've only ever bought music from them, which you can burn something like seven times or some such - don't know about video.

If it's just a matter of getting a DVD burner for your computer, that might be less hassle than hooking your laptop up every week, etc. Plus, you wouldn't have to wait on me/other people to get around to burning you a copy. :)

Alternately, you can reimburse someone else to download them and burn them for you (cost of episode + cost of DVD). That's another middle man, though, and again assumes you can make a hard copy of the program from iTunes.

[rowan-redbeard.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure what kind of laptop you have, but I'm guessing from some of your other comments that it's a Windows one. And if you don't have an S-video output, then you'll have to rely on the external monitor hookup. That looks something like this:

http://www.dataip.co.uk/Reference/SVGAPinOut.php.

I'd be surprised if your laptop doesn't have one, but it's conceivable. If it does, then there are a number of devices that can take an (S)VGA monitor output and convert it to a TV input. Here are a couple that seem reasonable (I can't really give much of a comparison, since I'm not terribly familiar with any of these, however I do recommend Newegg as a good online vendor):

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16815100117
(also http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0009B0L36/ref=pd_cp_e_title/102-5818555-8102515?ie=UTF8)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814100010
(also http://www.amazon.com/AVermedia-Micro-Mac-Scan-Converter/dp/B00006B7F7/sr=8-1/qid=1159412316/ref=pd_bbs_1/102-5818555-8102515?ie=UTF8&s=electronics)

http://www.amazon.com/AVERMEDIA-PQUICKPLY-Avermedia-Quickplay/dp/B0000CD08Z/sr=8-1/qid=1159412065/ref=pd_bbs_1/102-5818555-8102515?ie=UTF8&s=electronics

Any of them seem reasonable. Read the reviews and pick one that has the right price, I guess.

If your laptop doesn't have a VGA out connector, then you're pretty much out of luck. But let's hope that's not the case.

[magentamn.livejournal.com]

If you are thinking about spending that kind of money, you might want to consider getting satellite TV. Cheaper than cable, and you can watch other things. I have DISH TV, and I think I still have offers for free installation I can give you. You'd have to get the $29.99 package to get Sci-Fi; the $19.99 package doesn't have it.

Or would that give you too much TV?

Is it just me?

[muneraven.livejournal.com]

Is it not incredibly stupid that we can't choose the channels we wish to watch on cable for a reasonable price? Cable companies say that packaging the channels allows the popular channels to support the less popular ones. Am I the only person who doesn't believe that? Do I really, truly have to have access to the Golf Channel and a dozen religious TV channels in order to keep Logo and The SF Channel solvent?

This may just be the cranky POV of someone who remembers when TV was free and there was always an old black and white science fiction movie on TV every Saturday afternoon. :-P

I hope you find a way to watch your show without forking over big bucks for a hundred channels you never watch.