Dell LCD Monitor with TV...

Dell have recently released the Dell TV which is basically a 19" LCD Monitor with TV tuner; that can support picture in picture with your computer etc. I like the concept of having this great monitor for my computer that I could conceivably move to another room and watch TV – kinda cool that I would not need another TV for this function as I would unlikely be performing these functions at once.

I would however like this to go to the next step! Why can’t we have it such that there is an option that the built in tuner bypasses outputting directly to the monitor, and instead provides an output to hook it up to up to my computer via say USB2? This would then let me use the likes of Microsoft Windows Media Centre to control the TV tuner and also record to my hard drive etc. and allow it to control Picture in Picture. The monitor would also compress the TV input to MPEG2 or WMV in hardware improving performance.

Now I like this approach as I only own a laptop so I would like to avoid the external USB tuner if possible – just more clutter on my already cluttered desk. And for those folks who own a desktop then just think this would be one less card slot being used up.

Anyway, my random thought for the day ;-)