The Nuts and Bolts of Cutting the Cord

As part of my grand experiment, I needed to acquire a few new items. I needed to upgrade rebuild my computer, so that it was robust enough to output streaming media at 1080p to my TV, I needed a new wireless mouse and keyboard, which was capable of working from over 20 feet away from my computer, and I needed a new video card.

For those of you who are considering cutting the cord, one thing you should understand is that you don't necessarily need to spend thousands of dollars to make this happen. Here's essentially what you need.

-You need a decent TV that's capable of VGA, DVI or HDMI input.

-If you choose HDMI (which is what I chose), then you need a video card capable of HDMI output. Take some time and do your research. Some HDMI cards have the audio aspect build in to the card itself. Other cards require spdif. If your HDMI card requires spdif, then you need either a sound card or a motherboard that will output the spdif signal to the video card's input. (SPDIF stands for Sony/Philips Digital Interface. It's geek speak that you don't need to worry about much, but you should be aware of it.)

-If you choose DVI or VGA, then you will need a sound card that is capable of outputting audio to either your TV or to your Home Theater system. This is not a tall order, considering that most Intel motherboards manufactured over the last couple of years includes an optical audio output, and most home theater systems now include an optical audio input. If you choose to go the old school route, and use analog soundcard outputs to analog TV audio inputs, this too is simple. Your friendly Radio Shack guy can help you there.

You will need a decent video card, regardless. I chose n ASUS EAH5550, with 1 GB of Video RAM. Most of my research said that 512 MB of Video RAM was sufficient. I primarily chose this card because it had an on-board fan (as opposed to passive cooling), and because it has HDMI out.

As for the motherboard and processor, I am running an Intel Quad Core CPU, and the DG33TL media series motherboard, with 4 Gig of RAM and Windows 7 Pro. I chose ALL of these items because they were cost effective in my specific situation. To put this in perspective, I spent around $600 on the entire computer... not high end by any stretch of the imagination.

Stay tuned for continued updates on the grand experiment.