Small TV, or use computer for TV?

Since we took out the OEM tube TV in '07, we have used a Windows laptop and the Happauge 950Q USB tuner. It can be positioned to comfortably view, while the fixed set in cabover wasn't.

Cannot speak for DISH, and am seldom in private cgs w/ their brand of cable, but OTA is really suited for major network primetime news and the few shows you really love. The dozens of other channels' content are easily substituted w/ DVDs that your computer can play, or content you've recorded to the hard drive w/ the Happauge EPG and DVR software and your home cable.

I see a TV w/o a DVD player as a hobbled RV tool. For the life of me I cannot understand why tablets or cell phones don't have OTA tuners built in - tuners are cheap.

A radio fits a screen porch setting, so that your eyes are freed up for whatever it is outside worth looking at.

Small tv's are cheap now. Software for laptop is not expensive but you will probably spend as much setting up the computer as the small tv would cost. You will also get the advantage of a remote control.

I bought a 17" RCA TV for $90. It has HDMI and a VGA port. It works great as both TV and monitor.

Like everyone has said, use a TV. You would need to add a special video tuner to the laptop through a USB port and then hope that it works. It will be a lot cheaper and easier to buy a small, low priced, off-brand, digital TV set.

use a TV

When we want a TV set outside i just tap the camp ground cable with a TEE and run a RG cable over to where we want the TV and hookup the 22-inch VIZIO... Keeps it simple for us...

TV's for TV. Computers for computing.
JMHO!

Much easier to use an LED/LCD HDTV though you may need to get a little larger screen size if you want to do so at a brink and mortar store.

I have a MacBookPro & use an Elagto EyeTV USB stick for TV. I rarely watch TV, but I have fired it up to see that it works on both OTA and cable sources. If I watched a lot of TV, I'd prefer a separate set.

In any case, since I'm usually in a different campground every night, setting up any HD TV, laptop or actual TV set is a pain since you have to do a channel search each time you move to a new location. Depending on the TV, that can take anywhere from 5-10 minutes to an hour. If you do a lot of traveling & want to watch TV most nights, it would be good to check out the initial scan time for the device you choose. Unfortunately, I've never seen it as a written specification.

Dish, forget about using a PC for TV you would have to have a "tuner" card which has at least analog (SD) inputs. In the USA there is no (ATSC/NTSC) tuner cards that have HD (HDMI) inputs being sold although tuner cards may be able to tune analog channels which the modulator on the sat receiver would output on but that would be just plain ugly looking.

Personally to me, attempting to use a PC as a "TV" would be more hassle than it is worth. The only nice thing though is with most tuner cards you often get a "recording" feature which is sort of like having a DVR but you have to deal with a lot of hassles to get it working correctly..

I actually go the opposite way I bought a TV which has COMPUTER VGA inputs, then connect my PC to the TV. Most TVs now days are as good as a PC monitor so you will not notice any loss of quality while using the TV for a PC monitor.

I will suggest though that you should consider skipping the TV sizes of 15", these sizes for some reason have a very bad limited viewing angle and finding 12"-13" LCDs with VGA inputs are hard to find. I do have a 12" and for TV and computer viewing it is really small (widescreens are a pain).

Your best bet for TVs is 19" size will get you a wide viewing angle (this is important since this is the off axis angle from the center of the screen you can view the picture correctly).