06-08-2012, 11:36 AM
Update!
After many hiccups and delays I am finally set up! It works just like I hoped. The wiring itself was a bit easier than I thought. For some reason I had heard you couldn't run HDMI or USB over long distances. I got 50 foot cords for both at monoprice for $65 including tax and shipping and ran them through he walls and basement. I tried to get the 40" Toshiba I was looking at, but couldn't find one, so went with the 42" Vizio LED for $650. It's badass. I also got this goofy little mouse/keyboard for surfing from the couch. Not bad for 20 bucks. Figured I'd test it out and see what I like/need in a mini-keyboard before I spend more.
All in all I am very pleased. All the connections are perfect even over 50 feet, 1080 streams great and looks awesome on the big screen. Very pleased.
Things I learned:
--Don't buy shit at radio shack. I couldn't fit the giant end of my powered usb through the hole so I went to radio shack to get a short usb. 18 bucks for what cost 85 cents on monoprice. A $2 hdmi angle connector is $17... I ended up buying the usb because I didn't want to wait for it to ship.
--Silverlight sucks balls. I had avoided getting it on my desktop because it looked shitty. I was right. I had to install it to watch netflix and it took me several hours because the latest version doesn't install for Vista 64bit.
--Call to make sure they actually have the TV in stock in the store you are going to before you buy it online. The online numbers were wrong for me twice at two different stores. I bought a TV that didn't exist...
--CCC (for AMD) sets up a second display as an extension of the first by default. What you want to do is duplicate the first one. It is not intuitive at all how to do that. You have to right click on the monitors at the bottom in the "Creating and arranging desktops" tab to make it duplicate. I was pulling my hair out on this one.
--Butter the wife up before spending big bucks on a new TV.
After many hiccups and delays I am finally set up! It works just like I hoped. The wiring itself was a bit easier than I thought. For some reason I had heard you couldn't run HDMI or USB over long distances. I got 50 foot cords for both at monoprice for $65 including tax and shipping and ran them through he walls and basement. I tried to get the 40" Toshiba I was looking at, but couldn't find one, so went with the 42" Vizio LED for $650. It's badass. I also got this goofy little mouse/keyboard for surfing from the couch. Not bad for 20 bucks. Figured I'd test it out and see what I like/need in a mini-keyboard before I spend more.
All in all I am very pleased. All the connections are perfect even over 50 feet, 1080 streams great and looks awesome on the big screen. Very pleased.
Things I learned:
--Don't buy shit at radio shack. I couldn't fit the giant end of my powered usb through the hole so I went to radio shack to get a short usb. 18 bucks for what cost 85 cents on monoprice. A $2 hdmi angle connector is $17... I ended up buying the usb because I didn't want to wait for it to ship.
--Silverlight sucks balls. I had avoided getting it on my desktop because it looked shitty. I was right. I had to install it to watch netflix and it took me several hours because the latest version doesn't install for Vista 64bit.
--Call to make sure they actually have the TV in stock in the store you are going to before you buy it online. The online numbers were wrong for me twice at two different stores. I bought a TV that didn't exist...
--CCC (for AMD) sets up a second display as an extension of the first by default. What you want to do is duplicate the first one. It is not intuitive at all how to do that. You have to right click on the monitors at the bottom in the "Creating and arranging desktops" tab to make it duplicate. I was pulling my hair out on this one.
--Butter the wife up before spending big bucks on a new TV.