Networking/Connecting Computers and an HDTV

Hello, I'm quite perplexed and hellbent on getting a Christmas gift for my dad.

You see, I'm at their house for Christmas vacation, and they have all this new stuff that I'm not familiar with and wondering why they purchased it during the 8 months I was not here. Actually, I'm more concerned with how they received all this capital to purchase all these new things, and above all, a pet with which I was always denied but one was just given to my little sister. ARGH

Don't want to be a grinch, but let me lay out my predicament. My dad purchased a new PC and HDTV and has them connected, presumably, to the DirectTV satellite/cable box(?) and DVR. My dad has been some time at the Veterans of Foreign Wars bar and got this idea to hook up the old PC, preferably without the monitor, to the HDTV and use it as a jukebox.

Ideally, he wants to use a wireless mouse as the remote control, and he wants to set it up using a USB cable. Now he said something along the lines of a transferrable USB cable and not a normal USB cable. Now I'm not sure what he was talking about, but I could guess a USB 2.0 cable. That is as much as I was able to get out of him. I went to Best Buy last night and wasn't even sure what I was looking for.

If someone could help me out with Christmas shopping and help me to figure out how to set up this network you would be saving me a lot of headache and stress and give me a much more enjoyable holiday vacation.

This is probably too late, but I have no idea what the hell your dad is talking about on the USB cable. I imgagine he is talking about a USB cable to hook the TV to the PC? If so, no. Thats crazy. If he is talking about the mouse, than it is not wireless.

The mouse part is simple, buy a high-end blue tooth wireless mouse. Done.

The TV part? If it is an old PC, it probably just has VGA and no DVI (blue regular monitor cable and not a white end). All you can do here is just run a monitor cable from the back of the PC into the VGA input on the TV (if it has one). Then you would need to hook the sound out from the PC into the surround sound system or audio in on the TV next to the VGA port.

Then of course switch to the "VGA Input" on the TV to get it on screen.

Yeah, it was too late but thank you for the help. I bought him a gift card to Best Buy.

Edit - + Rep for what it is worth.