How I Turned Our TV Into A Computer (a TVC)
We have a TV but we’re a millennial, Internet family. I’ve tried every way to make the twain meet. First we got a Chromecast, but you need some other device to access it, and there’s things you just can’t do. Then we got a Roku, which has a nice remote, but which is even more limiting. It just basically locks our TV to Netflix, and reduces us to typing show names on the equivalent of a rotary phone.
I kept adding devices that actually limited what I could do on the screen, when what I really wanted was the limitless potential of a PC. So, when the pandemic hit, I just did that. I got a Mac Mini and plugged it in, creating a family computer with a giant monitor, and this thing does everything.
It does Netflix and all media consumption, not just whatever services the dongle understands. We can download files and subtitles don’t break like they do on Chromecast. We can also search for media without going through the whole damn alphabet. It’s a computer. We just use a wireless keyboard and mouse.
Perhaps most importantly, it lets us do media production. We can do Zoom calls. I hooked up a webcam and microphone and we use this for both the kids classes as well as what my daughter calls ‘Appa’s Zoom…
