In hindsight, it would have been nice to get a monitor that has more input ability, but I don't want to buy another one now.The Dell 22" widescreen monitor I have has composite & S-Video in addition to the VGA and DVI inputs. I have my DishNetwork TR-40 plugged into the composite input so I can watch our local DTV stations (WSBT-WX mostly) in a PIP. I could run an S-Video cable from my ViP 211 to the monitor, but I don't see the advantage in doing that since I have a nice Toshiba HDTV connected via the HDMI.
If you really wanted to do it right, the Samsung 2333HD 23" LCD computer monitor is actually a 1920x1080 HDTV that has component, VGA, DVI, and 2 HDMI inputs. Staples was selling it for as low as $250 ("normal" price is $279).
I rewired things for this setup (not that anyone really cares, but it is possible):
- SAT TV1 RGB output to HDTV via component (actually composite cables)
- SAT TV1 HDMI output to Computer monitor via DVI adaptor (could benefit from a DVI switch, but for the little I switch - I just have it manual now)
- SAT TV1 Audio RCA output to AV receiver (so I can output to the home theater and Zone 2 to the computer speakers in the office)
- SAT TV2 Coax output to TV2
So one cool thing I can do now is watch my OTA on my computer monitor! Basically I just got another viewing source for the satellite by using the simultaneous output of TV1. Thanks to everyone for your comments - without this forum I never would have known what the ViP722 could do to make it work.