A frugal life is an easy life!

Mrs frugal loves to watch the soaps and various TV series.
For some time now, we've been recording them on a freeview recorder box.
Occasionally, it misses but more often than not, it managed to record everything ok.

Factor in, that I have been looking at why we have a HDTV, yet only ever use it via our old blue-ray player?

So I attempted to get the internet on our TV, through a new recorder box.
I asked around and was advised by our TV equipment provider that there were two options available to us.
I could rent a recorder box that has smart TV built in, enabling us to get easy recordable access to iplayer, itvplayer, etc, as well as conventional recording.
Or option two, rent a new "smart" TV.
The recorder box was only £6 per month more, the smart TV would cost around £20 per month more.
Me being of the frugal ilk, opted for the recorder box option.

I went through the scenario of what is a weekly occurance in our home, via recording off freeview.
I asked dozens of questions, can the box get BBC iplayer? Can it receive itv, channel 4OD, channel 5? Can it receive tubeyou, etc?
Yes was the answer, so we booked one out and waited eagerly.
When the brand new box came, not only was it faulty, not recording any freeview programs, but it also had no options to receive BBC iplayer, itvplayer, channel 4OD, etc.
I returned the box and got the old one back after haggling them back down to the original price I was paying, for their clear misrepresentation at the point of sale.

Visiting a number of forums, the Humax recorder box never had BBC iplayer available and had no plans to, this was the statement put out on the Humax bookface page.
This got me thinking.
My computer is relatively new and next to the monitor plug I had a HD socket. Why didn't I just use this?
Connecting the sound up seperately is no problem, I use a cable from my computer headphone socket to my amplifier anyway, I have for years. No problems there.
For the picture it was a little more complicated.

After connecting my HD lead from my monitor socket to my HDTV, I needed a way of changing the resolution.
After a little trial and error I found a way of doing just this.
A problem I had was that using windows 7, whenever I turned on my TV channel to match my computer output, my computer screen would display fine, but the TV display was either blocky or a small percentage of the screen.
Not good for viewing TV, films, videos, etc.
I found that both monitor and TV had a "priority" option.
The monitor was classed as 1 and the TV was classed as 2.
But when I turned on the TV to view my desktop, windows 7 automatically switched these two around so the TV became the priority monitor for the computer. No matter how much I fiddled around with them, changed and saved new settings, this remained the case.

I read website forums, windows forums, questions and answers, but was left with no clear way to get my head around it and resolve the issue.
So off to bed I went, as I often do, leave it alone and an answer will come.
Sure enough it did.
It suddenly dawned upon me that I was attempting to change the resolution that windows used, I could use "dual display" through windows 7, but the TV resolution/screen size, was actually controlled by my graphics card... in particular, my graphics card settings.
A quick change of my graphics card settings and when windows automatically reverted my TV to priority 1 for my computer monitor, it then followed my graphics card settings.
My desktop monitor, now priority 2 (when my TV was being used as a monitor) was being run off windows 7 settings (even though it is connected to my graphics card in the same way).
The picture problem resolved, the sound was never an issue, I can now display anything on my computer through our main TV, as and when I choose.

Tubeyou music videos, even old boxing videos, anything from all the terrestrial catch up websites.
The beauty of it all is that it cost me just £20 for a HD lead long enough to reach my TV, the better half can still record anything she wants but if she misses anything, I can now play it back on our front room HDTV.
There are no more hassles, as I've set up a simple limited account on the computer, that she can use when I'm not around, it's as easy as switching the TV over to the feed channel.
I am no longer reliant on a smart TV or an internet recorder box and what they choose to allow me to watch.
The tubeyou video search is no longer only a partial service featuring the top few videos they allow me to watch and search for (as was the case with the internet box), instead I get tubeyou music videos in full of what I want to watch, without limitations.
I can watch films stored on pen drives, my hard drives, etc. All the family can view all the family photos and home videos on the main TV in glorious HD, all in all, a very frugal way to watch everything we want to see.