Connect Your PC To Your HDTV

Your TV has come a long way from the days of rabbit-ear antennas and VHS players. No longer must you suffer the indignity of having to rewind a tape before returning it to Blockbuster, or of bribing a small child to hold the antenna in just the right position so you can enjoy fuzz-free viewing of Hawaii Five-O (the Jack Lord version, not the remake).

Don't get complacent, though: You're still probably not on the cutting-edge yet. Have a pile of remote controls littering your coffee table? Archaic. Don't have a single Internet source for HD streaming video? Unacceptable. Still use composite cables for your gorgeous new LED HDTV? Downright unforgivable. But that's okay. We're here to help. Just check out the package of how-to guides on the right-hand side of this story.

Maybe you're looking to cut your monthly costs by ditching your cable TV in favor of a collection of free-or-cheap Internet streaming services. If so, our "From Your PC to Your TV" and "BitTorrent to TV" how-to articles could come in handy. Or maybe you already have a media-streaming set-top box--such as a Roku or an Apple TV--but you want to add more channels. Well, here's how to hack it.

On the other hand, perhaps you're looking for a way to keep up with your favorite TV shows even while you're away from your living room--in which case the answer is to stream live TV to your PC. And to deal with that colony of remote controls cluttering up your coffee table, you don't have to buy a snazzy new universal remote. Instead, you can ditch them all and use your smartphone as your remote. So get to it. All that TV isn't going to watch itself.

This story, "Connect Your PC To Your HDTV" was originally published by PCWorld.