I have an HDTV and an 8800 GT. I know that you can take out the 8800 GT from the computer and plug it into the TV. What happens/what can you do with the TV/Video Card when you do this?

I tried this with a PCI tv tuner card with my 8800GT driving a 1080p via a DVI out/DVI to HDMI in connection. The TV had been working Great as a computer monitor. Then I got a PCI TV tuner card. It needed 2 physical cable connections and I had coax cables running everywhere. The tuner card came with a program that popped up a TV window just like any other program. I could throw a little TV show window up in the corner of the 42, while I did other stuff. If it was interesting, go full screen. OK, that was fine. Next, I wanted to use Vista's Media Center instead of that clunky display program that came with the card. Boy, that worked good. It downloaded all my cable channels and displayed them on screen just like my cable box. It interfaced a web page where I could check out schedules and set up recording. All this, except it would not tune in the QAM (hi def) channels. Watching hi-def TV on my 42", 1080p computer monitor (TV) was the whole point, so that was a bust. All in all, my experience was that TV via a computer is not ready for prime time. For instance, I wanted a PCI cable card reader so I could watch All my cable stuff via media center. It's made by ATI, but we cannot buy it (builders only). Geeze! It was constantly one goofy thing after another. Seemed to me it could turn into a hobbiest's nightmare in a real hurry.Now I run cable directly to the TV's cable in. I use the Picture in Picture feature now (TV on cable and PC on HDMI 1). Not near as trick, but it just works.