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Right,

I've recently moved and am looking at buying a TV for my room, And to save space i want to be able to use my PC through said TV, And be able to switch between the two easily.

What am i going to need?

I know i asked axs the other day but i wasnt really paying attention. :-)

If you're getting a HD tv then you can just hook it up to both the aerial/digibox through coax/scart and the PC through HDMI with a HDMI to DVI cable (if your PC supports DVI, most modern graphics cards do - if not then you'll need HDMI to VGA)

If you're not getting a HD tv then the next best option is TV with a VGA port, exactly the same as you'd connect a normal monitor to your PC with a standard VGA cable. If you don't go with VGA then you could use S-Video but you'll comprimise the picture quality.

Also remember you'll need seperate speakers for the PC.

cheers sam, now onto my next question, what TV would you recomend, its been a good 10-12 years since i last bought a new TV

What kind of size will you be looking for? What will you mostly use it for?

Nothing big, 21/23'' be used more for PC than TV i should imagin.

Why don't you get a decent computer monitor and a tv card if you're goping to use it more for pc?

i guess it could be done that way, how does the TV card work?

Yeah....what Si says.....go for a nice or even a cheap 24inch monitor like these
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/130842/show_product_overview
great value at under £200 with free delivery, good picture.

Wire in a TV tuner card for under £30 and away you go.

Or for about £60 get one of the freeview HD tuners so you can watch the BBC and freeview HD channels on it too.

I've got a question out of interest rather than plans of getting something. 1080 is the y resolution of the HDTV isn't it? If you were using it as a monitor isn't there a chance you'd want more than that? It doesn't seem like that much.

sounds like the best option, i've noticed there are USB TV card reciever type thingy's, are these any good or would you recomend PCI card? Also its not going to be jumpy and keep freezing is it?

You're right, there's a chance, but apart from the popular RPG's there can't be many games/applications that require above 1080.

I've just realised that the widescreen factor will negate it a bit as well. I do think top range pc gaming types do play at silly resolutions though. Not out of need but because they can.

or you can use the headphone jack or audio outs and plug them into the TV.

I've got a tv card in my pc - a pci slot one.

Things I like:

* It's good at recording and time shifting. This is very useful. If you like this feature get a dual tuner one. Most of them are now.
* You can fit more on your pc than on a sky + or Freeview PVR, or if you can't, you can get a massive hard drive for cheap.
* Doesn't slow down my computer.

Things I don't like:

*Took a bit of time to set up - once I had it works well. It's not hard to set up just takes a bit of time putting channels in order etc. This was inherent laziness more than anything.
* You need a good reception otherwise the picture quality isn't amazing.
* You have to boot up the pc just to watch the telly.

Exactly as Mr Pie says, PCI card generally gives better picture quality than USB but they are improving all the time.

BUT and its a big BUT you do need a very good signal strength or its pretty crap quality.

any way of checking this before shelling out on one?

Plug in a normal aerial into your telly and see what kind of picture you can get

does bennetts tv say it has a good signal when he tunes it? it's normally given as a percentage or the like. chances you are using the same aerial.