Set up old tv as second monitor

[Zkyo]

Would it be possible for me to use a (very) old tv as a second monitor? I've got it sitting a few feet next to my computer, it would be nice to watch netflix on it. Is there a relatively cheap solution to convert a DVI output from my video card to component (yellow, red, white) or coaxal? I'm not really concerned about the resolution, it's more for the novelty.

[DaveLembke]

Exactly how old is TV?

Does it have S-Video or RCA Audio Video Jacks or is it even older.

Quality will be poor unless you spend good money on video conversion equipment. Its sort of a waste of money really. It can be done and if it has S-Video or RCA Audio Video Jacks you can probably make it happen for under $100, but the quality is going to be not the greatest. Picture quality is usually blurry as well as I have seen videos not play at all or if they play they lag through the converters as its slow to convert the video on the fly.

If you have a TV with S-Video, you could add a older video card possibly to use the S-Video jack on that card to the TV. *However most S-Video enabled video cards are about 10 years old so, the integrated video that came with computer in a desktop computer is likely better so performance would be lesser.

[Geek-9pm]

DaveLembke has give the best answer.
Here is what I shall add. Used flat screen TVs are very low priced in the used market, aka eBay. About $35 for a working 15 inch flat TV set. Some have RCA jacks for an external source.

Adapters vary. A powered adapter is more versatile at about  $15 and a passive adapter is under $5 and both also on eBay.

As DaveLembke said, quality is at the bottom. Good fro very old movies that have lots of scratches anyway. 

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[BC_Programmer]

For the sake of clarity, the Yellow/Red/White connections are a RCA Composite cable. A Component cable is only for video and uses Red,Blue, and Green connectors. It's an important distinction as the two are not directly compatible. (Though some Flat screens accept composite inputs in their component plugs to save space on their rear panel).

DVI uses the same signal as HDMI; it's effectively just wired up different (and HDMI has audio). I can't find any adapters which accept a DVI connection, however, something like this one accepts HDMI. You can get a DVI->HDMI adapter for relatively cheap, something like this would be ideal in this case, (I'm sure that can be found elsewhere of course, that's just an example) I think.

Since the PC won't know the capabilities of the display, you'll want to reduce the resolution to 640x480 for the secondary display.

The trouble with a passive adapter is that the graphics card will have to explicitly support it. For the most part newer graphics cards don't sent the required analog signals that are passively converted to Composite, so an active converter is a more reliable option.

[camerongray]

What connectors does the TV have?  Unless it has a proper input for a monitor such as VGA, DVI, HDMI.etc then I doubt it's worth even considering using it.  The other connections (composite, s-video.etc) are designed for relatively low resolution video so will be unusable as a computer monitor - text will likely be unreadable.  The only use would really be for watching video where being super sharp isn't as important.

Old LCD monitors are extremely cheap nowadays, you could likely pick a somewhat decent one up for under $20.