I should start with a candid admission: I'm not a huge television watcher. I catch soccer matches on Fox Soccer Channel, and watch old movies on Turner Classic Movies, but other than that, it's a rare series that catches my attention. I do like Game of Thrones and The Newsroom on HBO and The Walking Dead on AMC, but that's about the extent of my viewing.

Enter Slingbox. The company makes a line of devices that you plug in between your television and your video source and it allows remote viewing and - far more impressive - remote access to the device via a virtual remote control. This means that if you have a DVR, for example, the Slingbox device will let you not only set up future recordings but enjoy previously recorded programming quite literally from anywhere in the world.

What makes the series, and particularly the top-of-the-line Slingbox 500 so darn cool, however, isn't that it lets you view your television and DVR programming while you're on the road, but that it effectively means you can turn any screen in your house into an additional television screen. Want to lay in bed and watch a show? The iPad app works great for that, and iPhones work well too, as you'll see.

If you've been to an electronics store in the recent past, you know that "Smart TVs" are all the rage, televisions that have the built-in ability to run apps, display YouTube videos, access your photos, and access slick content like Google Play.

Heck, what if you want to have Netflix on your TV? Or join the world of Hulu and Hulu Plus instead of paying that ever-increasing cable TV bill?

What if you want those features but don't want to buy a new HDTV system?

That's where the slick CTL HDMI gizmo comes in. A tiny box not much bigger than a pack of gum, it plugs in to the HDMI port of your existing TV and gives you all the functionality of those expensive TVs. Without the cost.

Let's have a look!

I'm borrowing my sister's new MacBook Pro and noticed it has an HDMI connector on the side. Cool. Now, can I watch some of the movies I own in iTunes on my huge Sony TV using an HDMI cable? If so, what's the trick and are there any gotchas for me to avoid?

Between my work as a film critic and the time I spend working on computers, I really stare at screens a lot. I mean, probably upwards of ten hours each and every day. Then again, I surmise that you also spend a lot of time looking at screens, be they televisions, computer screens, or even a smartphone or other mobile device.

But screens haven't really changed that much in the last ten to fifteen years. Sure, they're bigger, but the core technology and, more importantly, the way that we relate to the display screen hasn't changed much at all. We sit and look at the screen, be it 20-inches from our face while in an office or eight feet from a huge HD screen mounted on a wall. And there's no privacy because there's always a distance between the screen and your face.

Sony's crack engineering team decided to see if they could change that and create an immersive headset that contained its own tiny screen, a screen that was so close to your eyes that it had the appearance of a 150-inch HD television screen. And, while they were at it, they added a second tiny screen (both high def OLED), 5.1 audio and a vivid 3D system.

Enter the Sony HMZ-T1 Personal 3D Viewer, as shown on the model, above. Think of it as high-def goggles for any video content you'd like to enjoy in private. Sony sent us an HMZ-T1 to examine and try for a few weeks, and here's what we found...

Dave Taylor shows step by step instructions on how to connect a Windows PC to an HD television using an HDMI cable, then on how to configure Windows so you can watch anything you'd like on the TV directly. This works particularly well for Hulu, Netflix and similar streaming Internet video content.

Keywords: HDMI, HDTV, streaming video, TV on the computer, Hulu, Netflix, Inside Scoop

I just bought an adapter and HDMI cable so I could hook my MacBook up to the HD TV set in my mountain cabin and it looks great, but there's no sound! Do I need a separate sound cable for this to work? I thought that HDMI could handle audio and video?

Got a problem with my Proscan 32" LCD TV would love some help. Been trying to hook my PC to my TV like a monitor I see the boot up even the main screen but once I log in it goes back to the other monitor. I tried using the tv it wont I am using Vista unfortunately might be the prob any help would be appreciated

This is a user-contributed article.

TV has evolved in the last 5 years and can be difficult to understand. There are many technologies out there in the marketplace that are worth being conscious of as you go and buy an HDTV. Today's HDTV's also come with a variety of resolutions. You may see 720p, 1080p, 1080i etc. We are going through a changing of the guard, and it's all gotten rather complicated when you want to purchase a replacement set!

The first generation of HDTV's had maximum resolution or lines of 1080i/720p but today's TVs have a maximum resolution of 1080p. When buying a TV you'll find these 1080p sets to be more expensive than those that have a maximum resolution of 1080i/720p. This is because these 'true' HD TV sets are not only newer but they can accommodate optimal resolution on blu-ray and HD-DVD players without having to scale the image. The i/p behind the number indicates whether the resolution is interlaced (an older method of scaling images that results in the image having to be put back together and the signal to degrade) or progressive scan (a newer, superior method that results in no signal degradation).