PC To TV Video Converter

by LKV-2000

Product Details

• Item Weight: 8 ounces
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• ASIN: B001CJOLBW
• Item model number: LKV-2000
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (231 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #70 in Electronics (See Top 100 in Electronics)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: October 2, 2001

Product Description

Use TV as PC monitor to view presentations, games, pictures and movies or browse the Web. # Video standards: NTSC/NTSC-EIAJ/PAL/PAL-M/PAL-N # Resolutions supported: 640 x 480 (up to 85 Hz), 800 x 600 (up to 85 Hz) and 1024 x 768 (up to 75 Hz) # Input port: HD15 (VGA) # Output ports: Composite video (RCA), S-video and HD15 (VGA) # Front panel controls: Zoom, Menu and onscreen display directional controls # Image controls: Horizontal and vertical size, brightness, contrast, hue, saturation, sharpness and onscreen display background # 10 x 6 x 3 cm (4.0 x 2.25 x 1.0 in.); 82.2 g (2.9 oz.)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

83 of 84 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Works good so far, March 3, 2010

By 

J. Black (Michigan) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: PC To TV Video Converter (Electronics)

Works great right out of the box. Works great for watching Hulu and other streaming video sources. Picture looks just like its from a cable box or dvd player.

As someone else noted, you'll have to make sure to switch from PAL to NTSC if you're in North America (default is PAL). This is configured with dip switches.

I did not have to deal with the problem of the settings having to be readjusted after every use (that WOULD be annoying), because I didn't really have to adjust anything. Of course, the edge of the desktop was rolled off the edge of the screen on all four sides, but this is because of the nature of old-fashioned SD CRT televisions: they are actually designed to cut off some of the picture so that there is no "wasted" space. If I wanted to, I could have probably fiddled with the "zoom" and positioning controls, but for what I wanted to use it for: watching streaming video (primarily old tv shows) off the web full-screen, that was unnecessary. The edge-to-edge effect with the tv cutting a bit off the edges is how we have watched tv for decades.

I am running mine through a Philips HDD DVD recorder, simply because that was the device that had convenient A/V jacks on the front in my rack. Probably it helps with some of the signal processing as well.

It is important for buyers to have correct expectations with this device, however: you should not expect crisp PC-monitor-like graphics and easily readable text fonts. Your old-style CRT television is simply not capable of producing a high-res image and was never designed to display computer output. Likewise if you use an LCD with this device it will be the same because the composite and S-Video inputs on even an LCD tv are designed to accept and display a signal of CRT-tv quality. Sorry but that's just the nature of this beast. Do not expect HD quality!

To the person who gave this a bad review because they ran the composite output of this into a dvd recorder and tried to upscale it to 720p with an hdmi output: your doing it wrong! If you want crisp, hi-def output on a hi-def tv that has hdmi, then why not just get a gadget that converts VGA directly to HDMI (they do exist, I believe), or get an HDMI output card on your computer? Many hi-dev tv's even have a VGA port, so you can just plug your PC into it directly (or a DVI port, which can be easily converted as well). There are many better ways to do it with a hi-def tv than with a scan converter; scan converters are meant for old-style standard def tv's which have no other input options than composite or S-Video. Of course you are going to get bad results when you take a hi-res computer image, shrink it down to DVD or VHS-quality video, then try to magnify it through "upconverter" circuits. Its like taking a 10 megapixel still photo, printing out a postage-stamp sized print on your ink-jet printer and then scanning it back in and then wondering why the quality is degraded!

But if Standard Def is fine for you (as it is for me), and you understand the limitations, then this will work well. I only rarely watch television, and I have not felt the urge yet to go out and spend hundreds or thousands on a super-duper 95 inch super ultra 1080i LED flat screen. I bought this to show old tv reruns to my kids on demand, and it works great for that! We just got done watching the third episode of the original 1960's Addams Family on my 32" Zenith CRT I bought for $25 at the Salvation Army, and it worked perfectly!

Bottom line: if you don't require high-def, and you understand the limitations, this will work well. Don't expect to use your TV as a computer monitor with this device--its for displaying power-point slides, video and still photos. At 800x600 with a big enough tv, it might work reasonably well as an ok monitor for occasional things. If you want PC-monitor-quality output with a hi-def tv, look for a different solution.

108 of 114 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Works quite well, March 28, 2009

By 

David Glenn Lawson - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: PC To TV Video Converter (Electronics)

The converter box has one input (VGA) and three outputs (VGA, TV, S-Video). It it powered off a USB port.

The pros are that it is small and works quite well for video. I tried it with three different pcs and the quality of the video input will determine what you get out of it.

Cons include the quality of text output to the screen and the use of a USB port for power. If you use large fonts and icons, a lower resolution setting (800x600) and a quality video card you can read text well enough to surf the web (but you will have to use scroll bars at that low resolution) - I am using an older 36" Toshiba (pre-HD)

I am overall pleased with my purchase. I would recommend it for the price.

51 of 55 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Must re-configure each power cycle!, December 26, 2009

By 

J. Chris Campbell - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: PC To TV Video Converter (Electronics)

The device came set to PAL, but once I switched it to NTSC it was easy to configure.

The size and position for horizontal and vertical are easy to set, but the device forgets my settings every time I turn it off. Since I am powering the device from the computer's USB port instead of using a separate power supply, this happens every time I turn the computer off.

Since the device sits behind my computer and TV, I find it easier to live with only being able to see the top 60% of my lower panel (GNOME) or task-bar (Windows) than it is to re-configure the device every time I turn on my computer.

My TV is about 37 inches and not high definition (free at the dumpster when my neighbors got a HD flat-screen :-) ). I find that text is too fuzzy to read without large fonts for the OS when I use 1024x768, so I keep my computer set to 800x600.

A word of advice, do not let your computer automatically adjust your display size because it will automatically detect 1152x864 which is an unsupported resolution. At this resolution, my TV flickers and there is double-image with most text un-readable. Depending on your OS, this may or may not be possible to prevent, and it can be very difficult to override since the screen is garbled when you try to change the settings (especially if you don't know the keyboard commands for your OS).